qualities common to other Bodies it hath in it some parts more active and fiery others more passive and waterish or earthy it hath its tendencies to corruption and dissipation And though after the separation of the Soul from the Body it perchance loseth some of those particular Qualities Figurations and Properties that it had before yet it retaineth many of them for many of these Proprieties of a Body as such do not depend upon the Specifical Form of the Humane Nature as such Again there is in this Body a certain Active Specifical Form whereby it is constituted in Esse Hominis which hath in it and doth communicate to the Body certain operations specifical to it by this he exerciseth those operations which either flow from or are communicated by that Form as Life Sense Intellection Volition and the like And though Life and Sense be common to Man and Brutes and their operations in many things alike yet by this Form he lives the Life of a Man and not of a Brute and hath the Sense of a Man and not of a Brute For there is no such thing as Animal or Vivens not determined unto some particular Species as there is no such thing as a Man not determined in some individual For Universals are but Notions and Entia Rationis having their existence only in the understanding power and not in reality And these Operations and Faculties of Humane Life Humane Sense and Humane Understanding and Volition flow not from the corporeal Moles but from some other active regent Principle that resides in the Body and governs it whiles it lives which we call the Soul And therefore although the corporeal Moles after some kinds of Deaths retain the same bulky Integrals the same Figure Colour and many other accidents yet the Soul being removed the Faculties and Operations of Life Sense and Intellection cease from that Moles corporea and are no longer in it This Principle of Life Sense and Intellection in Man called the Soul hath the Body as its Province and Districtus wherein it exerciseth these Faculties and Operations and we shall find the Actions which are performed by it in the Body are of three kinds or natures 1. Some are immanent and not terminated immediately in any external or corporeal action 2. Some are transient and spontaneous terminating in the Body or some parts or motions thereof 3. Some transient but involuntary and exercised and terminated in or upon the Body These seem to be the several kinds of Actions of the Soul at least relating to the Regiment and Oeconomical Government of the Soul upon the Body 1. The internal and immanent Faculties and Acts of the reasonable Soul besides those of Common Sense Phantasie Memory Passion and Appetite common to Men and inferiour Animals are Intellect and Will and the proper Acts of the Intellect are Intellection Deliberation and Determination or Decision The proper Acts of the Will are Volition Nolition Choice Purpose or Resolution and Command in relation to Subordinate Faculties And although there be many actings both of the Intellect and Will that are relative to other things or objects than what immediately concern the Microcosm it self yet the principal part of that analogical Providence that the Soul exerciseth in relation to the Microcosm or Humane Compositum are Intellection Deliberation and Determination in the Understanding and Choice Volition Nolition and Purpose in the Will and these do or should regularly precede all those imperate Acts of the Soul that relate to the Compositum Before I write or speak or go a journey or eat or any the like action there is the deliberation of the Understanding whether I shall do this action the decision of the Understanding that it is fit to be done the choice of the Will to do it the purpose of the Will that it shall be done And although many times the distinction of these several procedures of the Soul do not always appear distinct especially in sudden or ordinary actions which seem to have but one act antecedent to the thing done namely the willing of it to be done yet in actions of weight and importance all these have their distinct order and procedure For although in the most incomprehensible and perfect Will of Almighty God there is no such succession of procedure yet in the operations of the rational Soul that is linked to the Body there is ordinarily that successive procedure of those immanent acts of the Soul that relate to any thing to be done This therefore is the first part of that analogical Providence that the Soul exerciseth in relation to the Body namely deliberation or counsel and decision in the Intellect and choice and purpose in the Will 2. The next Act which immediately succceds Purpose is the Command that is given by the volitive Faculty of the Soul and the Execution thereof and herein are considerable First The Power commanding which is the Will now determined by purpose or resolution Secondly The things to which these commands relate or the Object of them which in relation to the Body is in effect nothing but motion of the Spirits Nerves Muscles parts of the Body or the entire Compositum by virtue of this command the Muscles the Hand the Eye the Tongue perform those imperate commands of the Will I do not digest sanguifie nor my Heart move nor my Blood circulate nor my Meat digest by any immediate command of my Will but I eat I drink I move my Eye my Hand my Muscles my whole Body in pursuance of this command of my Will Thirdly The executive Instrument of this command mediately are my Nerves and Muscles but immediately those subtil invisible and forcible Engins which we call the Animal Spirits these being the most subtil parts in Nature and parts of matter subtilized next in degree of purity to that Soul that commands them are in their nature proper fit and suitable to be the first recipients of the Empire of the Soul they are the nimblest agil strongest Instruments fittest to be executive of the commands of the Soul they are a middle nature between the Soul and the Body the nexus animae to the Body and these subtil Messengers speedily dispatch themselves through the Nerves to the Muscles which are by these Spirits and the native Indoles that is in them and the exact texture of them fitted to move those Integrals of the Body to which they serve and as the Spirits shot through the Nerves are the first and immediate Instruments of the Soul in its imperate acts so the Muscles are as it were the Instruments of the Spirits or the remote Instruments of these imperate motions And by this means the Soul hath the actual imperium and command of all those motions of the Body which are spontaneous or capable of being commanded by the volitive Power of the Soul 't is by this the Eye-lid opens or shuts the Eye is converted to this or that object the Lungs are intended or
again some of the superior sort especially of Terrestrial Animals have quandam imaginem umbram rationis and are advanceable by Industry and disciplinable Acts to a great perfection and seem to be the next rank of natures below the animal nature of Man as Elephants Horses and some others but the nature of Man though in the animal part of him he is the highest rank of visible Animals yet in his intellectual nature he seems to participate of the angelick nature and is next below them in the specifical existence of Soul Psal 8.5 He was made a little lower than the Angels and participates of the highest degree of Animals and the lowest degree of Intelligences participating of both natures to keep as it were a continuity between the upper World and the lower and to maintain a communion with them and between them 3. We have here also the Idea or Model according to which the Humane Nature was framed namely after the Image and Similitude of God wherein we are to take in Man constituted in his full and compleat nature namely in the union of his two Essential Parts his Animal Nature and his Intellectual What this Image and Similitude of God was or wherein it consisted is variously disputed I shall first consider what it was and then what it is and was 1. It was not 〈◊〉 any corporeal Similitude or Image for the Divine Nature is incorporeal and invisible and therefore hath no Image or similitude of that kind 2. It was not any Image adequate to the Divine Perfection and Excellence as the Impression in the Wax is the adequate Image or Representation of the Seal and as large as it for God's Perfections are infinite both in extention and intention and no finite Being can be an adequate Image of an infinite Being or Perfection 3. It was not an Image that takes in all the resemblance of the Parts of Divine Perfections or Excellences as the little Image upon Caesar's Coyn resembled Caesar's Effigies or a new born Infant resembles a full grown Man for neither the Perfections nor the Being of God do convenire in uno aliquo genere univoco with those of Man the Perfections of God are not representable by any created Being in a true propriety of their nature no more than in their degree of intention or perfection 4. Neither do I take it that this Image or Similitude is only meant of that Idea of the Humane Nature in the Divine Understanding conformable to which Man was made for though this be true yet it is not all it says nor all that is meant because it would give Man no greater preference than the very Vegetables that were made the Third Day which were made according to the Ideal Image thereof in the Divine Intellect 5. Neither do I think it was meant of the Second Person in the Trinity who was the express Image of the Father the brightness of his Father and the express Image of his Person for although Christ assumed Humane Flesh yet it was many Ages after and in the Language of the Scripture and the Ancients in the Creation Man was made like unto God but in the Work of Redemption the Son of God became like unto Man Phil. 2.7 Made in the likeness of Man 6. Neither do I think that the Image of God here meant was the greater World the Universe which though it be an excellent Image of the Divine Excellency namely of his Majesty Power Wisdom and Goodness and sets it out far more than any single created Nature can especially if we take the Universe in its full comprehension both of the visible and intellectual World And though it be true that Man is a kind of Abridgment a little Abstract of that greater World in his Intellectual Nature resembling in his Soul the Mundus intelligibilis of created Intelligences and in his Animal Nature bearing an admirable Analogy to the Mundus aspectabilis and so in both Natures conjoyned being the little Image or Portraiture of the great and universal World for though this is a Truth yet it seems it was not the Truth intended 7. Neither do I think it was intended of that resemblance which in his Intellectual Part he bore to the good Angels who of any particular created Natures best resemble Almighty God being pure immaterial intellectual powerful immortal wise and benevolent Beings though this be also a Truth that the Soul of Man seems to be the lowest rank of Angelical Natures yet it seems not the Truth that is here intended for it is plain that the Image of God here meant is spoken with respect to the intire Humane Nature and of the whole Compositum as appears in the reason after given by God upon the interdiction of Murder Gen. 9.6 which had been an improper reason if applied to the Soul which is immortal and uncapable of death But the meaning of this Image of God seems to be this That as all Excellency comes from that most Excellent Author of all Beings in whom all Excellencies are lodged formally or essentially or virtually so this Excellent Author did these things in relation to the Humane Nature viz. 1. He gave him a capacity greater than any other visible single created Being to receive the noblest Excellencies 2. That he gave him as great a Capacity as possibly might be consistent with such a nature to receive Divine Excellencies 3. That he filled that Capacity with all those Excellencies that he was thus capable of saving only that of a necessary immutability in the fruition of all those Excellencies Now these Excellencies with which the Humane Nature was filled and which made him as much as was possible for such a created Being to resemble his Maker were these 1. In the structure of his Body and Animal Nature most singular Majesty Beauty Strength and Usefulness 2. In his Soul a whole Constellation of Divine Excellencies viz. in the Nature of it Immortality and Spirituality in the Faculties of it a light and clear Intellect a free and incoacted Will in all which he highly resembled the most intellectual and freest Being in the Habits of it Knowledge in the Understanding enabled by the noblest Object God himself and all other Objects of use and conveniency to him in his Will rectitude 3. In his whole Compositum perfect fruition of all that sutable good to his nature wherein he consisted in Happiness Immortality or a possible persevering in Life without dying Power and Authority over this inferior World and all things therein as God's Vicegerent upon Earth in which respect Governours are said to be Gods a sufficient power and strength as well in the Frame of his Animal Life as in the sagacity and advantage of his Understanding to exercise that Dominion and Sovereignty and lastly a due Order Subordination and Regiment of all his Faculties Of these Perfections some were accidental or adventitious to the Humane Nature by the Benignity of Almighty God and concredited thereunto upon
it is expresly affirmed that both Sexes in distinct Persons were then created Male and female created he them and such transpositions are not unusual neither in the Holy History nor in other Histories The first Chapter gives the brief and orderly Relation of the whole Series of Times and Things done in them and the second Chapter is only a fuller and more explicit Declaration of some things that are briefly and compendiously delivered in the first Chapter as appears not only by the Relation of the Formation of Eve but divers other passages relating to what was transacted in the first Chapter 7. The Formation of Man was the last Work of the Creation the last Work of the last Day and the Reasons of this Order seem to be these 1. Because in the Method of the Creation of Sublunary Natures Almighty God proceeded from the less to the more perfect and curious Parts of the visible Creation as first he made Vegetables then Fishes and Birds then Brutes and Man in the last place as the most perfect and containing not only the Faculties of Vegetables and Animals and that in a more perfect nature but also a superadded intellectual spiritual Soul So he was the noblest part of the Creation at least of this lower World 2. Because Mankind should be furnished to his hand with all things convenient and useful to his existence and operation as the Grass was provided before the Brutes were created so before the Creation of Mankind Fruits of the Earth were provided for his food and delight a Paradise for his entertainment and employment of his Senses and Industry Idleness being not indulged even in Paradise and the goodly Furniture of the visible World both Celestial and Sublunary to raise his Admiration Contemplation and Delight 3. Because God Almighty intended him a liberal Patrimony which he would furnish and compleat in all its numbers before Man was created and as soon as he had created him gave him this inferior World as his Usufructuary and Steward at least but yet withall gave him a subordinate dominion of that whereof he made him his Steward and this great Benefactor prepared this Gift of this inferior Terrestrial World to be ready for his Creature Man's reception as soon as he had a Being and accordingly gave it him with all its Furniture Gen. 1.28 29. 8. That Man was by Almighty God in his first Creation in a state of perfect Felicity and Immortality but under a condition of Obedience to the Divine Will Command and Law that he had implanted in his Mind and Conscience certain Principles of Moral Goodness and Righteousness which are the Original of those common Notions of Good and Evil as so many secret Byasses and Inclinations to the observance of the Good and avoidance of the Evil. And as even the inferior Animals have implanted in them secret Instincts and Tendences for the preservation and advance of their sensible individual and specifical natures so these implanted Notions and Moral Inclinations in the Mind of Man were therein lodged to guide and lead him in a conformity to his excellent Constitution and for the attainment of an intellectual and eternal Good and these though the vigour and brightness of them were much abated by his Fall yet were transmitted with his nature to his Descendents And this is the Original of those common Notions which yet remain in the Humane Nature though refracted and abated by the Fall of Man this is that common Light and Law of Nature which to this day in some measure prevails in the generality of Mankind to the Acknowledgment Adoration and Reverence of a Deity and Moral Righteousness this is that Law of Nature mentioned by the Apostle Rom. 1. written in the Hearts of Men wherby they do by Nature the things contained in the Law But of this I shall write somewhat fuller in the ensuing Chapter 9. Besides this Moral inscribed Law God Almighty for the tryal of Man's Obedience gave him a positive Law prohibiting the eating of the forbidden Fruit under pain of temporal and eternal Death and Curse and Man was left in the hands of his own liberty to obey or disobey it 10. That Man being left to the free liberty of his own Will though furnished with sufficient abilities to have obeyed Almighty God yet by the temptation of Satan his own sensual appetite and ambitious affectation violated his Maker's Law and broke that Condition upon which much of his Perfection and Happiness was conferred upon him and although he retained his Essentials namely his Essential Constitution this Spirituality and Immortality of his Soul his Faculties of Understanding and Will he thereby incurred these unhappy deprivations 1. A loss of the immortal state of his Composition being now obnoxious to the separation of Soul and Body 2. A very great abatement of that temporal Felicity he had in this Life and obnoxious to the everlasting separation from God with the Death of the Soul 3. An abatement and diminution of those Habits of Knowledge and Rectitude of Soul and a great weakning and decay of the vigour and activity of connatural implanted Notions or Inclinations 4. A great disorder in the due subordination of his Faculties and a great confusion and corruption prevailing upon his noble Faculties and weakning disordering and abasing them 5. An impair of that Sovereignty and Dominion over the Creatures who rebelled against Man as soon as he forsook his Maker 6. Diseases Disorders Weaknesses Sicknesses Harbingers and Forerunners of Death attaquing his Bodily Constitution 7. A transmission of these Hereditary Imperfections and Decays to his Posterity And herein and hereby we have an Account of that great Quaesitum among the Learned Heathen where yet for want of this Discovery by the Holy Scriptures they could never attain the full knowledge and reason namely the Original of Sin and Evil and those many Corruptions Defections and Miseries of Mankind And thus much concerning the Divine History of the Creation and Defection of Man CAP. IV. The Reasonableness of this Hypothesis of the Origination of the World and particularly of the Humane Nature and the great Advantages it hath above all other Hypotheses touching the same THat the World had a beginning of its Being at least in that order and consistence that it now holds I have shewed in the beginning of this Book Again if there could be any imaginable doubt or question whether the great Integrals of the World were eternal and without beginning yet I have shewed that Mankind or the successive Generations thereof ex ante genitis is in Nature and Reason impossible and in Fact and Experience apparently improbable and therefore that there were some common Parents of Mankind who had their beginning of existence and that in some other way than they are now produced All that have supposed an Origination of Mankind ex non genitis have admitted something either of Matter analogous to it out of which Mankind hath had such his Origination
been formed according to the established Law of the successive production of Mankind ex mixtione seminis utriusque sexus Nay the more considerate Pythagoreans and those Jews that held the Transmigration of Souls never supposed any transmigration into any spontaneous production of Man or Animal but only into such as proceeded ex univoca generatione and what hath never been done yea never supposed to have been done we have no reason to suppose possible to be done by any natural and finite Efficient for such these Souls must be whether they pre-existed or not And therefore though in the Resurrection the separated Soul is supposed to reassume his own Body again yet this seems not to be by any natural power residing in the Soul to form the Body and reunite it self to it but must be attributed to that Almighty Power of the Glorious God and to the working of His Mighty Power whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself and by the very self-same excess of power whereby he first created Man upon the Earth shall he form raise and reunite the Humane Nature in the Resurrection vid. 1 Cor. 15.1 Thess 4. Mat. 13. Mat. 24. Christ the Son of and raised himself but in the Resurrection the Dead shall be raised by the Power and Command of the Glorious God Secondly It is not supposed by those that the Souls of perfect Brutes had any existence antecedent to their first production for their Souls are not of a self-subsisting nature they cannot exist out of them but begin with them and dye with them so these in their first production could not arise by any such illapsus animarum into elementary Matter but we must attribute their primitive Formation or Creation to the Command of the Divine Will and so if we give them any Origination we shall upon this Supposition give them a nobler Origination and by a more immediate interposition of the Divine Power and Will than to that of Man which seems unreasonable As to the Second It is true the Platonists attributed an Universal Soul to the Universe the Anima mundi which though they sometimes suppose it a created Intelligent Nature yet in other places we shall find them attributing so great power and energy to it that it seems they made it to be no other than God himself But when they held their Supposition of an Anima mundi as a created Existence subordinate to Almighty God although they attribute many of the great Appearances of Nature both in their production and government to this Universal Spirit yet they dare not assert unto it the Efficiency of the first Original of Humane Nature by it and if they should yet this their Supposition would have this flaw in it that they take greater pains and run the hazard of more difficulties by supposing the Origination of Man from this Anima mundi than if they should with us suppose the immediate Origination by the Divine Power neither do they gain any thing by it But this I may possibly resume again hereafter But the Supposition whereof we took notice before is this That there is a threefold created Universal Nature viz. a Natura mentalis common to Men and Angels a Natura sensitiva common to Animals and a Natura ignea which is the common Principle of Vegetation And therefore as the communis natura ignea is dispersed through the Universe and by participation thereof to particles of Matter gives an existence to the Vegetables of several natures so the communication of the communis natura sensitiva might at first give an original to perfect Sensitives as perchance it now doth to insecta sponte nascentia so the participation of the Natura mentalis to some portions of elementary Matter may also give the origination of the first Men and Women in the World Two things I should say to this First Although it be true that the abstraction of the Understanding ranging the Souls of living things under these Distinctions and generical Notions hath given us the Notion of one common Mentalis natura and one common Sensitiva natura and one common Ignea natura yet it will be hard to prove that there are any such real common Natures really existing but in the Individuals thereof We have the common Notion of Natura animalis and yet never any Man could make out that there was any Animalis natura but what existed in the Individuals or that here ever was or can be really existing any Animal with it not determined in some more contracted existence than an Animal Secondly I must needs confess there is a fair probability of Reason offered by many Learned Men of this triplicity of existing common Natures and it carries a great analogy with many other Phaenomena in Nature and therefore I dare not generally deny it though the explication of the manner of their Existences their particular Natures and Uses be difficult But if it be admitted as possibly it may be that there is some common Element of Mental Nature another common Element of Sensitive Nature and another common Element of Ignea Natura and that the several Ranks of Beings Rational Sensitive and Vegetable participate of these respective Natures as their common Store or Element from whence they are derived and therefore for instance the Rational Soul in Man were a participation of that common Element or Stock of the Mentalis natura yet still we must go higher for the Origination of Mankind for this would be no other than as it were the Materia prima or communis of the Souls of Men. 1. Either this Natura mentalis is indivisible and communicated intirely without any distribution of several divided parts of it to all Men as the common Heat of the Sun is communicated to a thousand Men together and then all Men will have one common Soul and there will be no individuation nor principle of individuation between Mankind for the same universal indivisible Soul reasons and wills in every Man which would be unintelligible and absurd 2. Or to uphold Individuation in the Persons and Souls of Men this common Natura mentalis must be either truly several divided Souls with Origen's Mundus animarum or else though this common Nature be actually one at first yet it is divisible and potentially many and so the several Souls of several Men must be so many several Particles or Ramenta of this Universalis natura and either this portion thereof must be by the superior Activity of Almighty God or else it must have a kind of natural division of it self according to the division of Matter qualified and organized to receive it If the former still there is dignus vindice nodus for God Almighty must be called in to distribute and participate the portions of this Mental Nature if the latter then what shall become of the Individuation of the Soul after Death It will return back and be drowned as it were in the Natura mentalis or be
proportionate to their being nature and capacity 2. And as thus the contemplation of the Efficient and his Beneficence to other created Beings induceth us to conclude an end of fruition designed to Man so the contemplation of the Work it self concludes the same Man hath in the peculiarity of his nature these two great Powers and receptive Faculties whereby he is rendred amply capable of a great enjoyment namely his Understanding whose proper Object is Truth and the noblest Truth that is and its proper action is directed to that Object namely Intellection and Will whose proper Object is Good and the greater and more sovereign the Good is the more suitable it is to this power and the proper act of this power is to reach after and desire and embrace and delight in its Object and the filling of these two receptive powers with the chiefest intellectual Truth and with the chiefest and intellectual Good is that which perfects advanceth and enableth these Faculties or Powers And this doth lead us to a just discovery of what that end of fruition is for which Man was designed by his beneficent Creator namely such as is suitable answerable and proportionate to those Powers or Faculties in Man whereby he excells all inferior Animals his Understanding and his Will and herein consists his happiness his end of fruition or enjoyment 1. As to his Understanding the great and general fruition of Good therein is Knowledge Now I shall distinguish these Objects of Knowledge or Scibilia into two kinds 1. The Scibilia subordinata which being united to the intellective Power by that act or habit which we call Knowledge do advance and perfect this Power or Faculty in a subordinate way measure or degree such is the knowledge of Natural Causes and Effects of Arts Liberal or Manual of Rules of justum and decorum of Moral Truths and the like this gives a subordinate perfection and fruition to this Power varied and diversified according to the worth of the Objects and the perfection or clearness of their perception 2. The Scibile supremum which is the ever-glorious God his Perfection Attributes Wisdom Power Goodness his Will and Commands so far forth as that infinitely perfect Being is cognoscible by our finite Understanding This is the supreme Truth the highest fruition of the intellective Power and the greatest perfection of an intellective Nature as such 2. Again as to the power of the Will it hath likewise Objects of Good answerable to the former distribution 1. The subordinate Good of Moral Virtues Honesty Sobriety Justice Temperance and all the train of Moral Virtues these being united to the Will in their acts and constant habits the Will enjoys a great Moral Good tranquillity of Mind complacency and delight 2. The Sovereign Good which is the glorious God reached after by the Will as the chiefest Good and enjoyed in the manifestations of his Love Favour Presence Influence and Beneficence this fills the vastest motions of the Will fills it with Peace Contentation and Glory and keeps it nevertheless in a perpetual motion by returns of Gratitude humble Love Obedience and all imaginable extension of it self for the Service Honour and Glory of that God that hath thus bountifully given to the Soul a power in some measure receptive of his Infinite Self and fitted that power with a proportionate Good even the Goodness and Bounty of the ever-glorious God And now because Man hath a double state namely a state in this Life in conjunction of the Soul with the Body naturally dissolvible and a state of Immortality after this Life either in the Soul alone or in the Soul in conjunction with an immortal Body as shall be shewn in its due time therefore proportionable to this double state is that fruition which Almighty God designed for his End 1. In this Life the proportionable fruition of Man is that which is compatible to the state he hath here namely the knowledge of God and his Works in a measure suitable to the intellectual Capacity in this Life the sense of the Divine Love Favour Goodness and Protection the sense of his own Duty to God to Man to himself with a cheerful endeavour to observe it And from these arise dominion over his Passions and inferior Faculties and the due placing ordering and moderation of them a resignation of his Will to the Divine Will and a dependance upon his Goodness Power and All-sufficiency and from all these arise peace of Conscience contentation and tranquillity of Mind in which even the wisest of Heathens placed the greatest Happiness acquirable in this Life 2. After this Life an immutable state of everlasting Rest and Happiness in the Beatifical Vision of God and fruition of so much of his Goodness and Beneficence as a glorified Soul is capable of for it is reasonable that the end of fruition of an Immortal Nature should be an everlasting Good commensurate in its intention and duration to such an Immortal Nature And now if any Man shall enquire if this be the End of Almighty God in the Creation of Man How comes it to pass that all Men attain not this End or how comes it to pass that Almighty God comes to be frustrated of the End which he thus designed as well in relation to his own Glory as the Good of Mankind I Answer first in general That this Enquiry belongs to another way of Examination namely herein we must have the assistance of Divine Revelation both to answer this Enquiry and to guide us in it which in this place is not designed to be prosecuted 2. Yet more particularly thus much I shall say 1. That the wise God hath as it were twisted his own Honour and Glory with Man's Felicity and Happiness if Man decline to honour glorifie love and obey his Maker and casts off the primary and chief End of his Being it is just and necessary that he be deprived of the End of his own Fruition and Happiness which is the Reward of his Duty 2. The Liberty of the Will was the great Prerogative of the Humane Nature and Almighty God having furnished that Nature with all conducibles to enable him to obey and to continue him in that Obedience Man by the abuse of his own liberty deprived himself of his own felicity When we speak therefore of the End of Man we speak of it as God made him not as Man made or rather unmade himself But of this End of the means of his Restitution by Christ and the admirable System and Connexion of the Divine Providence in relation to Man in his Redemption belongs to another Discourse We are in this preceding Discourse but in the outward Court of the Temple where the Gentiles came or might come by natural Light or Ratiocination Therefore to conclude all Almighty God out of his abundant Wisdom Goodness and Beneficence as he hath made Mankind so he hath fitted him for a double End namely to glorifie his Maker and everlastingly to enjoy him and in order hereunto hath given him a double station and in each of these a differing kind of fruition of his Maker viz. a station in this lower World and a station in the glorious Heavens His station in this lower World is during the time of his mortal Life here below and in this station the glorious God hath furnished Mankind with all conveniencics and accommodations suitable to it as the comfortable Accommodations of his sensible Life the Comforts of humane Society the Use and Dominion of his Creatures the admirable Faculties of his Mind the Books and Instructions of his Word and Will the goodly Works of Creation and Providence the Tenders and Ayders of his Grace and Guidance the Effluxes and Manifestations of his Favours and Love the Anticipations and Hopes of Eternal Happiness these and many more such as these the Bountiful God affords to Mankind even in this state of Mortality which may and do render it in a great measure very comfortable But withall he lets us know and we must know That these are but as so many Bounties to render our passage through this Life the more easie and convenient to our selves and the more serviceable to our great Lord and Master This is not to be the place of our rest or final happiness but a place of exercise and probation a place of preparation for our future and more durable state we are here as it were but put to School to learn our Duty and our Lessons we are but as young Plants planted in a Nursery till we come to a convenient size and fitness to be removed and then we are to be transplanted into another and a richer Soil In this World we are as it were Seeds ripening upon the Trees or Stalks till they are fully digested and ripe and then as the Seeds drop into the Ground and become the Seminary of a new Plantation so by Death we drop into Eternity and become the Children the Embryones of the Resurrection and then we come into that second and blessed station the Country of our Rest and Happiness our Home and the End of our Being where we shall ever behold the Glory of the Glorious God and glorifie him for ever where we shall have the perpetual sensible vigorous satisfactory Manifestation and Influences of his Love to all Eternity and enjoy that Blessedness which Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither hath entred into the Heart of Man to conceive And this is the great End of the Glorious God in making this great goodly Creature called Man whose Body is but the Husk the Shell of that vital immortal Beam of Light Life and Immortality that Seminal Principle of Eternal Life the Soul irradiated and influenced by the Sacred Spirit of Life and Love and if God lend me Life and Strength shall in my next be handled FINIS A
these yet certainly of all the visible Creatures that we are acquainted with Man seems to have a very great Prerogative of excellence And though he may not bear so fair and so noble an Image of the Divine Glory as the Universe in its full Systeme and Order or as those nobler Beings that are of a Rank and Nature above him yet certainly he bears a greater measure of the Divine Image than any one visible Creature we know and so far forth as we know God himself affirms thus much of Man that he created him after his own Image which he sayes not of any of the Celestial Bodies themselves Gen. 1. Man therefore is a Creature that of all visible Creatures that we know is the noblest We may observe in the Creatures of a subordinate rank to us how the more inferiour and ignoble bear somewhat of the Image of the superiour a kind of shadow or adumbration of those perfections that in the superiour are more perfect not only by a gradually but specifically differing perfection We see in some Metals an Analogical resemblance of those vital effects of Vegetables growth digestion and augmentation that is more perfectly in Plants and perfect Vegetables We see in Vegetables a resemblance of Appetition Election Generation and in some of them an imperfect Image of that universal sense of Feeling which we find more perfectly in Animals We find in Animals especially some of them as Foxes Dogs Apes Horses and Elephants not only Perception Phantasie and Memory common to most if not all Animals but something of Sagacity Providence Disciplinableness and a something like unto a Discursive Ratiocination bearing an analogy image or imperfect resemblance of what we find though in a degree specifically more excellent in the humane Nature insomuch that Porphiry Plutarch Sextus Empericus Patricius and some others have been bold to make reasonableness not the specifical difference of the Humane Nature and some latter persons would not have the Definition of a man to be Animal Rationale without the addition of Religiosum wherein he seems particularly to exceed the Brutal Nature Although in truth that which seems to be Reason in the Brutes is nothing else but the Image and Analogical representation of that true Reason that is in Man as the Water-gall is the Image Shadow or weak Representation of the Rainbow And we have reason to think that that intellective and volitive power which is in Man bears an Image and Representation of the like power that is in Angels and separate Intelligences though neither of equality to that perfection that is in them either in degree or kind And although it were too great presumption to think that there is any thing in any created Nature that can bear any perfect resemblance of the incomprehensible perfection of the Divine Nature very Being it self not predicating univocally touching him and any created Being and Intellect and Will as we attribute them to God are as we may reasonably think not only of a Perfection infinitely transcending any created Intellect and Will but of another kind and nature from it yet though we are not able to comprehend the excellence of the Divine Nature we cannot frame unto our selves a conception of him without the notion of Intellect and Will though infinitely perfect It seems that those two great Faculties in us bear a weak Analogy with and Representation of the Divine Nature And therefore in that respect Man is the Image and Representation of the Glorious God though the disproportion between him and this his Image be infinitely more than the disproportion between Caesar and his Image upon his Coin or the Sun in the Heaven and the Shadow of him in a Bason of Water And in this respect the Humane Nature is a worthy and noble Object of our Enquiry and Knowledge because here is the best visible Image of Almighty God that we can fully acquaint our selves with next to him that was the Brightness of the Fathers Glory and express Image of his person Christ Jesus our Lord. And besides this relative consideration of the Humane Nature with relation to those Beings that are above him Man is an excellent Object of contemplation so if we look upon him either absolutely in himself or with relation to Creatures of an inferiour nature he is a worthy and noble object of our contemplation If we consider him absolutely in himself he is an Object worthy of our contemplation he is admirable in excellent composure and figuration of his Body and in every part apart and in the whole structure put together admirable in the Nature Faculties and Excellence of his Soul admirable in the conjunction of both together admirable in all the operations of Life Sense Intellect and Will which he exerciseth in this state of conjunction and union admirable in his production and generation and admirable as to the condition of his Soul in its state of disunion and separation The speculations concerning him are all full of great variety curiosity and worth because the Subject it self is such If we consider him with relation to other created Beings of an inferiour nature First he comprehends all the excellencies that are in the inferiour ranks of Being and that for the most part in a more excellent and perfect manner The Life that is in Vegetables and the operations of that Life the Life and Sense that is in Sensibles and the excellent operations of them all Sensation Perception Memory Phantasie Nutrition with its several process the faculties of Appetition Passion Generation The disposition of Parts and Organs that are best in any Animal are to be found in the disposition order and texture of the Body of man and wherein it differs it differs with much advantage and prelation over the structure of the Bodies of Animals so that the knowledge of Man gives us a full account of the excellence of others either Animals or Vegetables He that well knows Man knows whatsoever is excellent in the Animal or Vegetable Nature Secondly Besides these Excellencies common either to the Vegetable or Animal Nature and Man there are certain excellencies superadded to the Humane Nature certain specifical prelations in his Body the Structure Posture Beauty and Majesty thereof certain specifical excellencies and usefulness in some of his Organs the disposition of his Hand Brain Nerves and other Integrals Again the specifical Excellencies of his Soul in those great and admirable Faculties of Intellect and Will Of all which in their due time So that he that is well acquainted with and knows Man knows whatsoever is excellent in the Vegetable and Animal Nature and much more So that upon the whole account we have a Noble and Worthy Object of our Contemplations in the contemplation of Man 2. In the contemplation of Man we have an Object that doth not overmuch confound us with its excessive multiplicity and yet it doth not satiate nor proves ingrateful for want of sufficient variety Touching the former of these
or the sense of those effects and operations which after by the help of the Understanding are carried up to the discovery of things not perceptible by Sense immediately Now there may be many things in Nature unto which we can have neither of these accessions of Sense How many Stars are now discovered by the Telescope which were never before known because not perceived by Sense And how many more there may be which are not visible to us by that help we cannot yet know till that discovery We cannot know what the extent of the Universe is whether there be any Worlds without the compass of this whether the Heavenly Bodies are inhabited and with what Creatures We cannot know the Nature Constitution Faculties of created and separate Intelligences nor the manner of their Ubi Motion Intellection mutual Intercourse or detection of their Minds These things are out of the reach of our Sense either mediately or immediately and consequently without the help of Divine Revelation we can never upon a natural account come to any certainty in them or the most we can otherwise know is by considering the reflexed acts of our Understanding whereby we know many acts of our own minds and Soul which are not perceptible to our external Senses and upon that account we may think that 〈…〉 their perception may be something analogical But Man is an Object of greatest vicinity to himself and hath thereby and by other contributions the best opportunity to know and understand himself with the greatest certainty and evidence And yet it cannot be denied that notwithstanding this great proximity of Man to himself yea and notwithstanding the many and great Essayes Attempts Enquiries and Observations that have been made in all successions of Ages by men of excellent Parts Learning and Industry we still remain and are like still to remain ignorant of many things of importance concerning our selves The great and wise God whose Glory it is to conceal a matter having lodged many things in the Humane Nature and Fabrick and Constitution thereof so secretly and so closely that notwithstanding the Experience and Observation of near 6000 years and the search and industry of the best Judgments in all Ages and the close proximity of Man to himself there are very many things in our Nature whereof we neither can and probably never shall be able to give any account to our selves or others with any evident nay with any tolerable certainty as if the Divine Wisdom meant hereby to give to the Children of Men an instance to keep them humble that cannot find out the certainty of what they hourly most intimately converse withal and an indication of his own profound and infinite Wisdom that can thus keep secret those things which in regard of their proximity to us we have great opportunity to know And of this nature are many things which we know to be but we cannot give our selves any sufficient explication of the manner or reason of them We are certain we have a vital active Principle in us by which we see understand remember which we call the Soul But whence that Soul comes or how and when and in what manner it is united to the Body whether it be extended with the Body or indivisible and in every point of the Body how and in what manner it exerciseth its nobler acts of Intellection and Volition or how far forth it stands in need of the Organs actually to exert any of those operations or how far forth it doth or may exert them without it how or by what means the Species not only of sensible Objects but even of Notions of the Mind are preserved in the Memory without confusion and dissipation notwithstanding lapse of time and intervention of infinite variety of Objects whether it be the same individual principle that exerciseth the acts of Intellection and likewise of Sense and Vegetation and if it be what become of these Faculties subservient to a temporal Life in the state of separation of the Soul where it is that the exercise of Sense is performed whether in the Brain or by the Soul by the mediation of the Spirits in the extremity of the Nerves and if the former how the Species of Visibles are carried through those dark Caverns between the Organ and Cerebellum supposed to be the Seat of the common Sense These and many more difficulties scarce explicable with any sufficient certainty do occur in the little Shop of the Fabrick of Humane Nature We must not therefore think that because of this nearness to our selves all the Phaenomena of our Nature can be rendred as evidently explicable as we do or may understand the Fabrick of our Hand by Anatomical Dissection But though this vicinity of our selves to our selves cannot give us the full prospect of all the Intrigues of our Nature yet we have thereby and by other opportunities much more advantage to know our selves than to know other things without us and by that opportunity of knowing of our selves to know the truth or falshood or analogy of very many things without us which otherwise could not be so well known or explicated 1. We have hereby an opportunity to know the Constitutions Frame and Order of our Bodies It is true the great advance of the practice and skill of Anatomy hath laid open to ocular inspection the Fabrick of the Bodies as well of Brutes and Birds as Men and therein they seem to be equally obvious to our knowledge But a Brute or a Man are another thing when they are alive from what they are when dead Anatomy can give us the Position Frame Situation Figure and connexion of all the several Integrals of the Body of Man or Beast but it is the living Mans observation of himself that must give account of those Vital motions that are in the Body when living as the Pulsations of the Heart the Circulation of the Blood the Communication of the Parts the Congruity or Disagreement between my Nature and other things variously qualified The Humor that separates divides attenuates and digests the Nourishment the several exertions of the several Organs relating to their several Functions the things that impede or advance the vital or sensible operations in a man what impressions are made upon the Blood and Spirits by the several passions of the Mind what things increase or advance the Spirits what disorder or discompose them the immediate and agil subservience of the Spirits to the Empire of the Mind or Soul These and infinite more touching the Body are discoverable by Observation and by no other Observation so well as by a mans Observation of himself 2. We have hereby an opportunity to know much more of the Nature Operations and other things relating to our Souls than we can touching other things or Natures There hath been much Dispute among Learned men concerning the manner of the Intellection of Spirits and Intelligences and by others touching the knowledge of Brutes touching their
remembring Faculty whether they have a kind of Discursive Faculty which some call Reason whether they do prescind or abstract touching their Voyces how far they are significant and whether they intentionally signifie by them how far their Animal motions are spontaneous or meerly mechanical and which are of one kind which of another or whether as Des Cartes would have it all are purely Mechanical Many vain things have been asserted by men that would be counted eminent Wits but without debating in this place the truth of any of these things it is no marvel if we are to seek what are the manner of these operations of abstract Spirits or Brutes we cannot know them unless we were in them so as to be acquainted with their inward motions or at least unless they had some such way of communicating their Perceptions and Phantasms unto us as we have to our selves or one to another But whatever can be known of them we may easily by inspecting and observing our selves know much concerning our own Souls and the operations of them We may know that we have a principle within which we do as it were feel distinct from our Bodies whereby we think and we know we think whereby we do discursively and by way of ratiocination deduce one thing from another whereby we abstract divide and define whereby we have notions of things which were never derived to us by Sense as the Substance or the Substratum of those Accidents of things which are derived to us by our Sense whereby we do correct the errors of our Sense and judge otherwise touching things represented than the Sense represents them The Sense represents the Sun no bigger than a Bushel there is somewhat within us tells and that truly that it is bigger than the Earth because we find Distance diminisheth the appearance of Bodies Our Sense tells us that the representation in the Looking-Glass hath all the motions the bulk figure colour of that corporeal Moles it represents and represents the same under all the renditions of a Body as it doth the thing it self reflected but there is that within tells us and that truly that it is but a meer shadow and no real Substratum under that appearance of any such corporeal Moles We do most certainly know that there is that within us that doth exercise a rational Empire over our passions and sensual appetite that believes hopes and acts in order to ends that respect another Life than that of Sense We do find as it were the principal seats of these operations we feel our selves to understand in our Head and that we will and resolve and love and hate and pity in our Heart almost as plainly as we find our selves see with our Eyes or hear with our Ears I feel the propensions and inclinations of my Mind as really as I feel my Body to be cold or warm I find in my self that this inward principle doth exert many of its actions intentionally and purposely I resolve and cast about to remember things that I would remember I cast about for all circumstances that may revive my Memory or Reminiscence When I command any Muscle of my most remote Limb to move it doth it in an instant in the moment I will it and hereby I understand the motions of my Mind are no way Mechanical though the motion of the Muscle be such I move ride run or speak because I will do it without any other physical impulse upon me and when I see many analogal motions in Animals which though I cannot call them voluntary yet I see them spontaneous I have reason to conclude that these in their principle are not simply mechanical although a Mouse-trap or Architas his Dove moved mechanically from an artificial principle And because I find that the remotest Muscle in my Body moves at the command of my Will and since I see the energy of my Soul in every particle of my Body though not using intellectual actions in every part yet using some that are imperate as Local Motion some that are natural and involuntary as the Pulse of my Heart the Circulation of my Blood my Digestion Sanguification Distribution Augmentation And because at the same time I understand consider determine speak walk digest and exercise as well intelectual imperate and involuntary actions and all from the same vital Principle though operating differently in several Faculties and Operations I therefore experimentally feel that my Soul though it hath the residence of the exercise of his nobler Faculties in my Head and Heart yet it pervades my whole Body and exerciseth Vital Offices proportionate to the Exigences or Use of every part the Flesh the Bones the Blood the Spirits Nerves Veins Arteries Seminal Parts and this I feel to be through my whole Body and if I find any part of my Body be so mortified as it becomes like a rotten Branch of a Tree whether it be Nerve or Joint whereby that principle cannot communicate it self to it it putrifies and corrupts and is not participant of the motion or influence derived from my Soul because it is now no longer in it to quicken it And as I find my whole Body the Province or Territory of my Soul in which it universally acts according to the different organization and use of every part so I find that my Soul as to its substantial existence is confined within the precints of it and doth not physically act without it and by all this I learn that my Soul if it be a Spirit may be circumscribed within the compass of a determinate space that though it be a Spirit yet its operations while it is in the Body may be if not altogether yet in a great measure organical I understand remember and reason better in my health than in my sickness and better in my riper years than when I was a Child and had my organical Parts less digested and inconcocted And though it be a Spirit yet I find it is no inconvenience to have some analogy at least of co-extension with my Body And although it may be a simple Spirit and univocally and essentially the same as well in my Toe as my Head yet according to the variety of the disposition and organization of the several parts of my organical Body it exerciseth variety of operations the same Soul that understands in the Brain and sees in the Eye and hears in the Ear neither understands nor sees nor hears in the Fingers but moves and feels These and many such Perceptions I have touching that principle of Life Sense and Intellection within me and of these I have as great a certainty as possibly I can have of any thing in the world First Although I cannot immediately have any immediate sight of my Soul or of its immediate operations or internal actings yet I sensibly see and feel the effects thereof with as great an evidence and demonstration that it is such as if I saw the Principle it self and its immediate
operations I sensibly see and feel that my Hand or Foot moves upon the command of that principle within me And when that principle is removed by a total deprivation as Death or by a partial deprivation as in a mortified Limb or Member or by a temporary suspension as in an Apoplexy or Deliquium Animi I am sure there is no such motion because that principle is absent in Death or its operation suspended in case of such Diseases It was therefore a principle that was within distinct from my Body that while it was there exerted this Empire and was obeyed in it Secondly In those actings of my Soul which are not in themselves perceptible by any sensible effect yet I have as firm and certain an evidence that they are such as if I had a sensible perception of them When I think or understand or remember or abstract or divide or define or purpose or will it is most certain these effects or intrinsick operations of my mind are not possibly perceptible by my sight or hearing or taste or smell or feeling they are objects of such a nature that fall not under any perception of any of those Senses yet I am as certain if not much more certain that I do think or remember or abstract or reason or resolve or will as that I hear or see or feel and I do as certainly know before I write what I am now writing that I think or reason touching the things I am writing or that I resolve or purpose to write them as I am certain that I have written them when I have written them for the motions of my mind are as certainly obvious to a perception in me answerable to them which I call the reflex act of the Soul or the turning of the intellectual eye inward upon its own actions as the motions or rather passions of my Sense are certainly obvious to my Sense I see the Object and I perceive that I see it And therefore though he was a little too positive that said Ego cogito was as it were primum cognitum yet certainly herein he was irrefragably true that there cannot be any thing more certain and evident to a man that thinks than that he doth think and yet that Thinking is not perceptible by any of our five Senses Thirdly But there is yet a farther opportunity of very much certainty in that knowledge that a man may have of himself and of those things concerning himself by that conversation by the help of speech or signs that he hath or may have with other men Man only of all visible Creatures having this priviledge of communicating his thoughts and conceptions by instituted signs of speech or writing and by this a man acquires a threefold superadded certainty of what he may or doth know concerning himself Namely 1. He thereby knows that there is a specifical Identity between him and other men and that they agree in one common rational Nature for by mutual speech we find that we have both alike an intellective discursive Faculty as I do reason so doth he as I divide define abstract purpose determine will so doth he use the like operations of his Mind and although oftentimes interest and misapprehension make us differ in our conclusion yet he endeavours to maintain his Conclusion by the like method of Reason and discursive Ratiocination as I do and most times when prejudice and misapprehensions are removed that which seems reasonable to him seems so to me whereby it appears that we concenter in one common Nature and that the Principle of Reason and Reasonable Soul is common to us both and that we meet in one common rational Nature 2. He likewise knows that as they concenter in one common rational Nature so every one of that Species hath yet an individual Principle of his own that individuates and personally discriminates one from another For till we mutually communicate our thoughts by instituted signs he knows not what I think or purpose nor I what he thinks or purposeth 3. This adds a certainty to me that I am not deceived in those reflections that I make upon my self and the collections I make from them for as I do find I think I reason abstract divide define purpose so I find by the help of Speech and Signs that he hath the very like internal operations and as I do find that those do arise from a principle different and distinct from that moles Corporea which I have so I find that he hath the same perception of the original of these internal operations and attributes them to a Principle in him distinct from the Body So that if I might have any imaginable doubt of those reflexed perceptions which I have touching those appropriate operations of my own Mind I am confirmed in them because I find the like perceptions in all the men I converse with And thus far touching the third Commendable in the search of our selves namely Certainty and Evidence 4. The fourth advantage of this subject and the knowledge thereof is the profit and usefulness thereof Next to the knowledge of Almighty God and our Blessed Saviour and the Sacred Scriptures there is not any subject in the World that is more necessary and useful to be known than the Humane nature with those incidents that do necessarily fall into that consideration and of all the knowledge that relates to man there is nothing of greater moment or use to be known than Man under the Physical notion of his Body and Soul and both united together And the usefulness of this Consideration distributes it self into these two kinds Usefulness in reference to Speculation or Knowledge and Usefulness in relation to Practice or Exercise 1. Touching the Speculative Usefulness there is this to be said that there is in the contemplation of Man a means of discovery and explication of very great and momentous truths And although possibly the very same truths may be elicited and in some measure explicated by parallel Phaenomena in the contemplation of Animals yet they are more clearly and eminently evidenced in the contemplation of Man who by how much the more excellent and noble a Creature he is above Brutes and by how much he is the more observable to himself than they can be by to much the more useful and excellent is the knowledge of himself Now these Speculative truths which I shall chuse to instance in shall be these 1. The due contemplation of the Humane nature doth by a necessary connexion and chain of Causes carry us up to the unavoidable acknowledgement of the Deity because it carries every thinking man to an original of every successive individual thereof by a course of generation till it come to a common Parent of the whole Species the immediate workmanship of the Glorious God 2. Consequently it gives every considering man a sound and full conviction that the efficient of this first Parent of Mankind is a most wise most powerful and beneficent Being
For the true prospect of the Humane Fabrick in its essential and integral parts in the fabrick of his Body and the faculties and operation of his Soul must needs convince any man of ordinary reason that can observe but clear and evident consequences that the Efficient that first made this first root of Mankind was not only an intelligent Being but a Being of most admirable Power Wisdom and Goodness for such this effect doth necessarily declare its Efficient to be 3. As the contemplation of the Origination of the Species of Mankind gives us an assurance of the Existence of the first Cause and of his Attribute of Wisdom Power and Goodness so the contemplation of the secondary origination of Mankind or the production of the Individuals by generation gives us an evidence of the like power wisdom and goodness of God and a little Emblem of the Divine Power in the Creation of the World Any man that attentively considers the progress of the generative production of mankind will find that this goodly and noble Creature called Man hath its gradual formation and complement from a small almost imperceptible vital principle which by the Divine institution is endued with such a regular orderly and unerring power that from most inconsiderable and unlikely materials builds up gradually the goodly frame of the Body cloaths it self with it and exerciseth an admirable Oeconomy over it And this it doth not by such a kind of choice deliberation and forecast as the Watch-maker makes his Watch for as yet this vital rational principle doth not exercise an actual ratiocination or discursive deliberation neither hath those organs of Heart and Brain and Spirits and Vessels by the help of which we exercise our Acts of Reason till it hath made and framed them And yet this admirable Frame is immediately wrought by this little particle which we call the Soul and moulded formed and perfected with an incomparable and unerring dexterity skill elegance and curiosity more and greater than the most exquisite Artist can shew in the most polished piece of Artificial work Now if this little spark of Life that in this work of generation and formation is Vicarius Dei the Instrument of his power and wisdom if this little imperceptible Archeus is endowed by the Divine power wisdom and institution with this admirable regular and effective power out of so small inconsiderable and unlikely materials to mould up and fashion the goodly Fabrick of Humane Nature and to perfect it for a complete habitation for it self wherein to exercise its most excellent oeconomy and operations if this Pusillus divinae lucis radius ex tantilla tam improbabili materiae particula mirandam naturae humanae fabricam tam affabrè eleganter inerrabundè formaverit If we find in so small a particle of a created Being this admirable energy why should we make a question whether that God that at first gave this admirable energy to the Soul to frame so goodly a piece out of matter so near to nothing should not have power to create a World of matter out of nothing 2. Again since I do see as plainly as I see my Paper that I now write upon that this fabrication of the Humane Body is the immediate work of a Vital principle that prepareth disposeth digesteth distributeth and formeth the first rudiments of the Humane nature when it is no bigger than a little Bean that afterwards gradually augmenteth and perfecteth it to the goodly complement of a Man And the same thing I see in the first rudiments of all generations as well vegetable as animal It doth give to me notwithstanding all the bold confidence and conjectures of Epicurus and those that follow him as far as for shame they durst I say it doth give me not only an undeniable evidence but an exemplar in analogy and explication that the coalition of the goodly frame of the Universe was not the product of chance or fortuitous concourse of particles of matter nor the single effect of matter and motion but of the most wise and powerful ordination of the most wise and glorious God who thus ordered the World and instituted that Rule Order or Law which we call Nature to be the Law of its future being and operation if I see that the Coagmentation of a Man nay of a Chicken or a grain of Wheat is not by casualty but the wise and powerful God hath committed the Coagmentation Disposition and Formation thereof to their Seminal Principles tanquam Vicariis substitutis Divini Numinis Instrumentis as it were to Vicegerents and subservient Instruments of the Deity I have no reason to think that the goodly Frame of the Universe was the production of Chance or Accident or bare Matter or its casual motion or modification thereof but that the same was the Contrivance and Work of the Great Wise and Glorious God as a Work in a great measure answerable to the Excellency of such an Efficient 3. Again I find a sort of Men that pretend to much severity of Wit and would be thought too wise to be imposed upon by Credulity where they think they have not evidence enough of Sense or Reason to convince them that would be thought to be Men above the common rate these have gone about as far as they durst to exclude God out of the World and pity those Men as troubled with Credulity and of weak Parts that believe the Regiment of Divine Providence a business that they think or pretend to think may be made use of to impose upon the weaker part of Mankind think it a Fiction and such as is utterly inexplicable to the satisfaction of a reasonable and impartial judgment Now the due contemplation of the Humane Nature and that Oeconomy that the Active Principle in it ordinarily called the Soul doth exercise therein to my Understanding gives me both a reasonable evidence of the Divine Providence governing the World and a fair explication of it to me I mean not in this place to examine the truth or falsity of the Plurality of Subordinate Forms or whether there be two or three distinct Substantial Forms or Souls in Man whereby he is Vivens Sentiens Intelligens for they are proper for a farther Examination in their proper place But at present I do suppose that that one Soul whereby Man is constituted in Esse Hominis is the single Principle of all his operations of Life Sense and Intellection because as to this purpose which I am now upon it comes all to one whether there be a Unity or Plurality of Subordinate Forms or of Souls in the Humane Nature I say therefore in the Humane Fabrick we may observe two kinds of Forms if I may so call them the one the Forma Corporis as such whereby it hath those Properties or Operations which are common to Bodies of the like make or composition whereby it is weighty and descends as other Bodies it is figured it hath dimensions and
remitted the Tongue speaks the Hand strikes or moves the Foot walks the Mouth opens or shuts and all those spontaneous motions subject to the Empire of the Will are performed And though I chuse my Instance in the subject in hand yet the like imperate motions are in Brutes and Animals though not by the Empire of Will which they have not yet by a Faculty that moves in many things spontaneously in some analogy and adumbration of the Empire of the Will in Man but incomparably below it both in perfection and freedom 3. Again there be very many Operations that although they flow from this active Principle yet they are not acts that are imperate by the Will but they are in a manner natural and unvoluntary and therefore I call them sometimes Involuntary sometimes Natural and they are very many and various such are many of the acts of Sense especially the external Though I do by the Empire of my Will direct the Motion or Acies of my Organ to this or that Object yet my Eye my Ear my Touch my Smell my Tast exercise their office of perception upon the Object duly applied to them without any act of my Will commanding them so to do when they are joyned to their Object So my Heart moves my Blood circulates my Meat digests my Body is augmented without any intention of mind to assist their actings So if there be an ill humour in my Body or a wound in my Hand or Leg the Vital energy of my Soul thrusts out the Balsamical humour of my Blood to heal the latter and useth all that Oeconomy that is proper for the expulsion or subduing of the former sometimes by pustulae or eruptions in the flesh sometimes by sweat sometimes by urine sometimes by seige and all this it doth in the most congruous way imaginable so that the best Physicians have not better direction ordinarily in their applications than to follow Nature in those motions And all this is done most exquisitely and yet without any deliberation or rational decision of the Understanding or Empire of the Will in relation to those Natural motions I shall only therefore observe concerning these Involuntary motions 1. That though they are without any dictamen Rationis yet they are done in a way of as great congruity to its end as if they were directed by the wisest counsel of the wisest Soul and it is reason good it should for it is a standing and most wise Law of exercise planted by the most wise God in this Vital Principle for the regiment of the Body And therefore though it be not directed by deliberation of the Humane Intellect or choice of Humane Will it is setled contrived implanted and directed there by a higher Wisdom even the Wisdom of the most wise God And this indeed is the reason of that Excellency that is seen in Instincts even of Brutes and the Formative process in generation that they so aptly and excellently attain their Ends namely because these Instincts and Powers are the immediate Impressions Signatures and Energies placed in them by the Great and Glorious God whose very foolishness as the Apostle tells us namely the seemingly vilest and lowest Impressions of his Wisdom is wiser than men 2. The second thing to be observed herein is That those Natural and Involuntary actings are not done as the former by deliberation and formal command yet they are done by the virtue energy and influx of the Soul and the instrumentality of the Spirits as well as those Imperate acts before spoken of wherein we see the immediate empire of the Soul That Soul that moves my hand my tongue my foot by way of express command and empire digests sanguifies carnifies excerts and doth all those Involuntary operations by it influence and presence remove but the Soul there is no more digestion sanguification or any other acts of that kind than there is speech in the tongue And although in some Insects there appears a palpitation of the Heart for some little space after it is severed from the Body and in Chicken and other Fowl after the separation of the Head from the Body there is a motion of the parts divided yet it lasts not long and they are but the irregular and convulsive motions or struglings of those Spirits which could not so hastily dismiss themselves from the vessels wherein they were inclosed I would now observe some generals in relation to this Adumbration of Providence and analogical Oeconomy of the Soul in the Body which are these 1. That this analogical Providence of the Soul in relation to its Province the Compositum or Microcosm is universal to every part of it there is not the most inconsiderable particle of Flesh Bone or Artery not the smallest Capillary Vein but it is present with and auxiliary to it according to its use and exigence and the congruity of its constitution it accommodates it self to the Eye for seeing to the Ear for hearing and though it accommodate not it self to the Finger in those exertings of those Senses of Seeing or Hearing yet it equally accommodates it self to those remote and small Organs as perfectly in relation to Feeling and to those motions that are suitable to them 2. That even those Exertions of the active Energy of the Soul that seem most remote from the deliberation of the Understanding and immediate active Empire of the Will are guided and directed with all imaginable congruity to their several Ends and Uses 3. That this very same individual Soul may and oftentimes doth exert all those operations at the same time without any difficulty or confusion At the same time I think I deliberate I purpose I command in inferiour Faculties I walk I see I hear I digest I sanguifie I carnifie my Lungs move swifter or slower by the empire and command of my Will my Heart moves naturally by the motion of Palpitation my Blood by the motion of Circulation Excretion Perspiration my Guts by the motion of Vermiculation my Stomach and Intestines digest the good ejects and expulses the bad my Disease is resisted and expelled my Wound cured and a thousand more concurrent coincident Motions and all these performed at the same time by the Power Energy and Oeconomy of one individual Soul and yet all this done easily and sweetly and perfectly without either lassitude confusion or perturbation And all this done by a little spark of Life which in its first appearance might be inclosed in the hollow of a Cherry-stone yet this little active Principle as the Body increaseth and dilateth evolveth diffuseth and expandeth if not his Substantial Existence yet his Energy and Virtue to the utmost confines of his little Province and every particle and atom thereof yea and it is of that absolute necessity that it should do so that without it the Compositum would be dissolved and the Body dissipated into corruption and its first principles as we see it falls out suddenly after the separation of the
Soul from the Body As the Body could not be reduced into that orderly frame in which it is constituted without the Plastick and Formative power of the Soul so it could never be upheld in that state of Order and Convenience without the continued Influence of the Soul The latter is as absolutely necessary for its continuance and conservation as the former for its constitution I easily foresee two Objections against the Method proposed 1. That the Hypothesis it self is not sufficiently evidenced How do we know that this Oeconomy is the effect of a Power or Nature or Being distinct from the Body and why may it not be the result of this Disposition Harmony or Contemperation of qualities or parts of that Matter that constitutes the Body 2. And if it be what need we magnifie the Humane Nature as the great Instructer in this business since we may with a little observation find very much the like in Brutes as well as Men For there we find a sensible Perception and Phantasie answering the Intellect in Man an Estimative or Judicial faculty an Appetition or Aversation and Locomotive faculty answering the Will and the very Oeconomy of the animal Soul or Spirits managing as well their spontaneous actions as these natural or involuntary exertions of Digestion Egestion Circulation and the rest of those Motions called Involuntary or Natural To the First of these I say That this is not the place for a large reduction of these Operations to the regiment of the Soul as a distinct active Faculty distinct from the Corporeal Moles and its contemperation that shall God willing in its due place be at large discussed which I am not here willing to anticipate In the mean time let the Objector but honestly and impartially examine and observe Himself and he will need no other evidence of this truth but his own experience to satisfie him that all those effects proceed from an active regnant Principle within him distinct from the Moles corporea or the contemperation thereof The distemper of the humours of the Body cause sometimes such sickness as disorders the Phantasie and Reason but sometimes though it distempers the Body the Intellective faculty and operations are nevertheless free and sound as Experience shews If this Objector was ever under a Sickness or Distemper of the latter kind let him give an account what it is that gives him under such a Disease the use of his Reason To the Second I need not say more than what I have before observed namely 1. That although the Inferiour Natures have a kind of Image of the Humane Nature yet it is less perfect and therefore no equal Instance in order to the explication of what I herein design 2. As it is less perfect so it is more distant and less evident to us than our selves are or may be to our selves the Regiment and Oeconomy of our own Souls in our Bodies and of them are more evident to us and perceptible by us than that Regiment and Oeconomy that the Souls of Brutes exercise in them and therefore fitter to be made our Instance of that which I go about thereby to illustrate namely the possibility necessity and explication of the Divine Providence in the governing and influencing of the Universe and all the parts thereof which I shall in the next place prosecute in the Analogy that this small Regnant Principle bears within its little Province to the Divine Regiment of the Universe Sic parvis componere magna I come therefore to the illustration of the Divine Providence and Regiment of the World by the foregoing Emblem thereof 1. By this smaller Instance of this Regiment of this lesser World by the immediate presidency of the Soul it seems evident that it is no way impossible but that the greater World may be governed by the Divine Wisdom Power and Providence It is true there are these two disparities between these namely the greater World and the lesser The greater World is of a more vast extent and again the Integrals and Parts thereof are of greater multiplicity and variety but neither of these are any impediment because the Regent thereof is of an infinite immensity more than commensurate to the extent of the World and such as is most intimately present with all the Beings of the World and of an infinite Understanding Wisdom and Power that is able to apply it self to every created Being and therefore without any difficulty equally able to govern the whole and every part thereof This we see in Natural agents that little spark of Life the Soul that exerciseth its regiment upon an Infant of a span long when the Body is grown to its due stature and together with the extension of the Body this little Vital particle evolves and diffuseth it self to the extent of the enlarged Body governs it with the same facility as it did before that extension And the sensible Soul of a vast Whale exerciseth its regiment to every part of that huge structure with the same efficacy and facility as the Soul of a Fly or a Mite doth in that small and almost imperceptible dimension to which it is consigned For the Soul is expanded and evolved and present to every part and the uttermost extremity of the greater as well as the lesser Animal And therefore if my Soul can have its effectual energy and regiment upon my Body with ease and facility with how much more ease and facility can a Being of immense Existence and Omnipresence of infinite Wisdom and Power govern and order a great but yet a finite Universe and all the numerous yet not infinite parts thereof 2. As there is a possibility of such a regiment of the Divine Wisdom Power and Influence in the Government of the World so there is a necessity of it It is not enough for the Soul of the Humane Nature to form and mould its Corporeal Vehicle if it gave over its work when that were done it would soon dissolve dissipate and corrupt There is the same necessity for the Divine Influence and regiment to order and govern conserve and keep together the Universe in that consistence it hath received as it was at first to give it before it could receive it The intermission of that Regiment and Divine Providence and Influx but a moment after the constitution of this World would have dissolved its order and consistence if not annihilated its Being And indeed he that observes the great variety of things in the World the many junctures and contributions of things that serve to keep up its consistence the want of any of which as the disorder of a little Nerve Vein or Artery in the Body would bring it into a great disorder the continual strife between contrary qualities the strange activity of the active Fiery Nature that involves it or at least is disseminated up and down in it the vast and irregular concretions of Meteors and those strange and various Phaenomena that are in the World which
as they proceed from or are found in the Integrals of the Universe are devoid not only of Reason but of Sense And he that after all this shall see the World upheld without any considerable decay or defect in the same state and order as it hath been for many Thousands of years will upon a due and impartial search find that it were far more impossible that this could be without the Wisdom Power and Influx of a most Infinite Omnipresent Omniscient and Omnipotent Fixed Being than for the Humane Body to be kept without dissolution and putrefaction being destitute of the influx and regiment of its Vital Principle the Soul And therefore some of the Ancients that were willing to solve the Phaenomena of the World have though erroneously thought that the World was Animate and that all these Operations in the World proceeded from that Anima Mundi as the Operations in the Bodies of Men proceeded from that Anima Humana that lodged in it and at length finding so great effects that are and may be done by this supposed Anima Mundi according to their Hypothesis have at last proceeded in plain terms to determine that this Anima Mundi was in truth no other than the Glorious God whereas they might with much more ease and truth have attributed all the great Oeconomy of the Universe to the most Glorious God without dishonouring him into the existence of a Forma informans or a constituent part of that World which he made Others to amend that absurdity and yet out of a piece of mannerliness and respect as they think to God though they deny this Universal Soul or Form informing of the whole Universe yet without any sufficient ground have devised several Systems of the Universe and assigned several Souls to each System or Vortex at least which should be the immediate Regent in every such System as the Soul is in the Body This as it supposeth something without evident ground so it doth without any necessity For the Divine Wisdom and Power is sufficient for the management and government of the whole Universe and if such Animae Systematum should be granted yet still there must be some one common Regent of all these Systems and their respective Souls or otherwise disorder would follow between the Systems themselves But thus far even those suppositions bear witness to the necessity of a Providential Regiment of the parts of the Universe that bare Matter Motion and Chance cannot perform this business but that there is a perfect necessity of a Regent Principle besides it which may govern and dispose it as the Soul of Man doth his Body And even that supposed regiment of these particular Souls of every System as they must needs have it if they had it at all from the institution and efficiency of the Wise God so they are all continually influenced from him and the whole College of them governed guided and ordered by him as their sovereign Regent 3. The Third thing that I design is this That although it is impossible for any Created Being or the Operations thereof to hold a perfect Analogy or adequate Representation of the Divine Wisdom Power and Providence in the governing of the World because the Wisdom and the Ways of Almighty God are unsearchable and past finding out they are of such a perfection that no Created Being or Operation thereof can be a just Parallel or adequate Resemblance of them yet there seems to be such an instance in the regiment which the Humane Soul exerciseth in relation to the Body that with certain correctives and exceptions may give some kind of Explication or Adumbration thereof whereby though we can never get a complete Idea of the Divine Regiment yet we may attain such a notion thereof as may render it evidently credible and in some kind explicable 1. The first act of the Divine Nature relating to the World and his administration thereof is an immanent act The most wise counsel and purpose of Almighty God terminated in those two great transeunt or emanant acts or works the works of Creation and Providence The Divine Counsel relating to the work of Creation is that whereby he purposed to make the World and all the several Integrals thereof according to that most excellent Idea or Exemplar which he had designed or chosen according to his infinite Wisdom in those several ranks and methods and in that order and state wherein they were after created and made The Divine Counsel relating to his Providence or Regiment of the World seems to consist in these two things 1. A purpose of communication of an uncessant influence of his power and goodness for the support and upholding of things created according to the several essential states and conditions wherein they were made some being created more durable some less some in one rank of being or existence some in another 2. A purpose of instituting certain laws methods rules and effluxes whereby he intended to order and rule all the things he had made with the greatest wisdom and congruity and according to the natures and orders wherein he had created them And this is that which I call the law rule and regiment of Divine Providence and seems to be of two kinds namely general Providence and special Providence The general Providence I call that whereby every created Being is governed and ordered according to that essential connatural implanted method rule and law wherein it was created And thus the state and several motions and influences of the Heavenly Bodies is that general providential law wherein they were created and according to which they are governed and the susceptibility of those influences and the effects thereof and of that motion is the general providential law whereby other physical Beings are governed in relation thereunto the activity of the active Elements and the passiveness of the passive the methods and vicissitudes of generation and corruption the efficacy of natural causes and the proper effects consequential to them the natural properties or affections of Bodies according to their several constitutions as motion alteration ascent of light descent of heavy Bodies These and the like are the general providential Laws relating to them Again that things indued with sense should have a sensible perception and certain instincts connatural to them that rational and free Agents should move rationally and freely These and infinite more are the standing and ordinary Rules and Laws of general Providence and the wise God who sees all things from the beginning to the end and therefore can neither be disappointed nor overseen in any of his Counsels hath with that great and admirable Wisdom so ordered these Laws of his general Providence that he thereby governs most excellently the World and they are never totally changed and but rarely altered in particular and that only to most wise ends and upon most eminent occasions And the reason is because the Infinite Wisdom of God hath so instituted and modelled
sensitive nature That the Rational Nature should have those Faculties of a Sensitive Nature and superadded to it the Faculties of Intellect Reason and Will whereby it might govern it self as a reasonable free Agent and determine it self to this or that action And these are the instituted Laws of the Divine common Providence 2. A continued influx of the Divine Goodness whereby things are upheld and continued in their state of being according to this Law of their Creation And by virtue of both these acts of common divine Providence all things are enabled to act and operate according to the Laws of their being without the necessity of any new individual concurrent act of special Providence producing directing or determining their several operations And hence it is that the Will of man by the instituted Law of his Creation and the common Influence of the Divine goodness and power is enabled to act as a reasonable Creature to determine it self and to govern its proper actions according to the Law of his Creation without any particular specificating concurrent new imperate act of the Divine special Providence to every particular determination of his Will Even as the continued influx of the reasonable Soul enables those Faculties which we call Natural or Involuntary without new deliberation purpose or counsel to every new act thereof And by this means the World is in an ordinary course of Providence governed according to those standing fixed Laws given to the Universe and the several parts thereof by the Divine Will wherein it is supported by the common influx and presence of the Divine power and goodness And this is that which being duly considered extricateth that Question which hath so much troubled the World concerning the sinful acts of men and how far forth the glorious God is at all concerned in them Certainly the imperate acts of his Blessed Will have nothing to do to enforce or necessitate the Will of man to any sin it is far from the purity of his Glorious Nature But the general Law of his Providence is only thus far concerned in it That he hath made Man an intelligent and free Agent put him into the power of his own Will but yet sub graviore imperio to restrain its actings if he please by his special Providence and Man in this state of his liberty when he doth sin sins from the Empire of his own Will and not from a determination of the Divine Regiment But though the contemplation of the regiment of the Soul over the Body hath given some analogical explication of the Divine Providence in the Government of the World yet as this Analogy is but imperfect the Divine Regiment of the World is infinitely more wise more powerful more perfect than the regiment of the Soul over the Body so in many things this Analogy by no means holds For instance The Soul doth what it doth in the Body though by a kind of efficiency yet it is but a subordinate efficient and vicarious and instrumental in the hands of the Almighty who as it hath endued the Soul with this energy so the Soul is but his substitute in this regiment of the Body but Almighty God is the supreme Rector of the World and of all those subordinate provinces and parts thereof Secondly in the imperate acts of the Souls regency of the Body and the Compositum She cannot in the Body work immediately without the instrumentality of the intermediate animal and vital Spirits But in the imperate acts of the special Divine Providence though we may justly think he doth most ordinarily use the ministry of those noble natures called Angels yet he may and oftentimes doth by the immediate Fiat of his own Will exercise these imperate acts of special Providence for his Power is infinite and all Beings are in an immediate obedience and subjection to it 3. The Soul cannot by its own Will exercise any immediate imperate act upon those natural and involuntary operations which yet are exercised by an influx from it indeed it may starve and destroy the Body by its Empire and thereby consequently impede and determine those natural and involuntary operations yet it cannot by its Intention or Empire prohibit or suspend their exercise the natural means being allowed and present it cannot effectually prohibit the Heart not to move or the Blood not to circulate or the Ventricle not to digest But it is otherwise with the Regent and regiment of the World even those things wherein he hath set a fixed Law which by virtue of the common influence of the Divine Power and Goodness they observe and follow are subject to the Empire of his special Providence and the imperate acts thereof And this is evident in that Administration of special Providence which is miraculous he commanded the Fire not to burn stopped the mouths and appetites of Lions and prohibited the natural operation and agency of Natural Causes 2. In all the special Providences that are exercised in the World though they do not visibly appear to us to be miraculous yet they most certainly are governed by the imperium of special Divine Providence whereby it sometimes excites second Causes to production of Effects which being thus excited they naturally produce sometimes impeding them sometimes diverting them sometimes directing them sometimes by contemperation or uniting other more active or contrary Causes allaying or enforcing them and although it may be the interposition of the Divine imperium or special Providence be not immediately the immediate antecedent Cause but it may be the third the fourth the tenth the twentieth Cause distant from the Effect Nay though possibly the conjunction of the immediate imperium Providentiae be with the First Mover in Nature the Heavenly Aethereal or Fiery Influx yet the regiment of the Divine Providence is as full and infallible in relation to the imperate regiment of the Effect as if it were immediately joyned to the designed Effect So that the Moral of that Poetical fiction that the uppermost Link of all the series of subordinate Causes is fastned to Jupiter's Chair signifies a useful truth Almighty God doth as powerfully govern and direct when he pleaseth and how he pleaseth all subordinate Causes and Effects as the Soul governs the motion of the Muscle or Limb by those strings of the Nerve which are rooted in the Brain 4. Again the regiment of the Soul over the Body is the regiment of the more active part over the more passive though both making one Compositum but the regiment of Almighty God over the World is not as a part of it or as a Form or Soul informing it but as a Rector or Governour distinct separate and essentially differing from it his regiment of the World in this respect not so much resembling the regiment of the Soul over the Body which together with it make one compounded Nature as the regiment of the Master or Rector over the Ship or the regiment of a King over his Subjects And
thus I have gone through the Speculative consideration of the Divine Providence resulting from the contemplation of a Souls regiment of the Body wherein I have been the longer because the contemplation of the Divine Providence is a Subject that delights me and I am contented to dwell upon it as much as I may and to take up this or any the like occasion to lead me to the contemplation of it And thus far touching the Usefulness of the Contemplation of the Humane Nature in relation to truths Speculative II. The Usefulness of it in relation to matters Practical wherein I shall be shorter This Contemplation hath these useful Advantages namely 1. Physical 2. Moral 3. Theological or Divine 1. For Physical by which I mean that practical part of Physical knowledge that is called Medicinal The due consideration and knowledge of the structure fabrick and parts of the Humane Body is necessarily conducible to that excellent Faculty for the preservation of life and health no one thing being more conducible to the advance and perfection of that Science or Faculty than the knowledge of the Humane Body wherein the Experience of Anatomy and dissection and the Observations of the ancient and modern Physicians hath given a large evidence and testimony 2. The Moral Practical consequences deducible from the knowledge of the Humane nature are many and useful For instance when I consider the admirable Frame of the Humane Nature made by the Wisdom and according to the Image of the Glorious God 1. How careful should it make me that I do not injure that goodly Structure in others by offering violence to the life of another or to corrupt him either by evil example or evil counsels 2. How careful should it make me in relation to my self not to embase that excellent Frame either of my Body or Soul or both into the image of a Brute by sensuality luxury or intemperance or into the image of a Devil by malice envy or irreligion How careful should it make me to improve and ennoble those excellent and comprehensive faculties of my Understanding and Will with such Objects as are worthy to be known and desired The intellectual Faculty is a goodly field capable of great improvement and it is the worst husbandry in the world to sow it with trifles or impertinencies or to let it lye fallow without any seed at all 3. The Theological uses that arise from the knowledge of our selves are great and many When I consider the admirable Frame of my Body made up in that elegant stately and useful composure and when I consider the usefulness amplitude and nobleness of my Faculties an Understanding capable of the knowledge of all things necessary for me to know accommodate and fitted to the perception and intellection though not to the full comprehension of a World full of variety and excellency of a God full of all conceivable perfection and goodness a Memory able to retain the notions of what I understand a Will endued with freedom whereby I am a subordinate Lord of all my actions and endued with a connatural propension and appetite unto rational good Reason and Conscience to guide and direct me in all the enquiries and actions of my life and besides all this a Soul the stock and root of all those Faculties endued with immortality and capable of everlasting blessedness When I consider that this Soul of mine is not only endued with faculties admirably fitted to the life of Sense which I enjoy in this World but find in it certain secret connatural rudiments of goodness and virtue and a connatural desire and endeavour after a state of immortal happiness And when I consider that this Frame both of Body and Soul had its primitive origination immediately from the great Creator of all things and although my own immediate origination was from my Parents yet that very productive virtue was implanted in the primitive Nature by Almighty God and the derivation of the same specifical Nature to me was by virtue of his original Institution and Benediction and by virtue thereof that excellency and perfection of Humane Nature in its essential which was first formed by the glorious God is handed over to me abating only those decays which Sin brought into my nature I say when I deeply and intimately consider these things I cannot but be sensible that that Being from whom I thus derive this being and such a being is a most wise powerful and bountiful Being that could thus frame the Humane Nature and thus freely bestow and confer this constitution upon me 2. And upon this sense of his Wisdom Power and Goodness I must needs entertain it with all imaginable admiration of it and with all possible gratitude for so great and so free a gift 3. And consequently I cannot choose but exercise the choicest affections I have towards him of reverence and fear of his Greatness and Majesty of dependance and rest upon his Power and Goodness of love to the excellency of his Essential Perfection and Communicative Goodness and Beneficence 4. And consequently of entire subjection unto him that upon all the rights imaginable hath the most just sovereignty over me 5. And consequently of all due inquisitiveness what is the Will and good pleasure of that God that I owe so much gratitude love and subjection to that I may serve and please him 6. A resolved entire hearty obedience of that Will of his in all things thereby to testifie to him my love gratitude and subjection 7. An external manifestation to Men and Angels of that internal love and gratitude I owe him by continual praise and thanksgiving to him invocation of him reverence of him and all those acts of Religion Duty and Obedience which are the natural Proceed of that internal frame of my Soul towards him 8. A constant desire of my Soul to enjoy as much of this bountiful glorious blessed Being as it is possible for my nature to be capable of 9. And because my estate and condition in this life is but a state of mortality and a temporal life an earnest endeavour to have my everlasting Soul fitted and qualified to be an everlasting partaker of his presence and goodness in a state of nearer union to him and fruition of him in that future life of glory and immortality 10. And consequently abundance of circumspection care and vigilance that I so behave my self in this state of probation here that I neither lose his favour from whom I expect this happiness nor render my self unworthy unfit or uncapable to enjoy it And thus this deep serious and comprehensive Consideration of our selves and the Humane Nature in its just latitude doth not run out barely into Notions and Speculations but is operative and practical teacheth a man Virtue and Goodness and Religion and Piety as well as Knowledge and is operative to make a man such as it teacheth him to be perfects his nature enricheth it with practical as well as
inquiry and such whose first composure and origination requires a higher and nobler Constituent than either Chance or the ordinary method of meer Natural causes and concurrences and that it is such a piece as in its first constitution and ordination requires an Efficient of infinite Power Wisdom and Goodness This is the end and scope of my present Inquiry Now to give a brief Inventory of the Excellence of the Humane Nature I shall observe as near as I can this order First I will briefly consider those Excellencies that he hath in common with the vegetable and sensible nature Secondly I shall consider those specifical or appropriate Excellencies that he hath above the former both vegetable and animal nature Under the Second general I shall consider Man singly with relation to himself and then with relation to other things without him In relation to himself I shall briefly consider these particulars 1. The excellency of his Soul or intellectual nature in its nature faculties acts and habits 2. The peculiar excellency of his Body 3. The peculiar excellency of the Compositum consisting of both his former essential parts In relation to things without him I shall consider him with relation 1. To God 2. To Mankind 3. To the other integrals of the World and therein 1. Of their serviceableness and accommodation to him 2. Of his dominion and soveraignty over them and the means and instruments thereof This is the brief Scheme that I intend of those specifical and appropriate preheminences that the Nature of Man hath above other visible Creatures First therefore touching those Excellencies that the humane Nature hath above the vegetable and animal Nature I shall subjoin these ensuing Positions 1. There is no excellent vegetable or animal Faculty in the vegetable or animal Nature as such but it is found in the humane Nature such as are attraction nutrition digestion conformation of parts digested proportionable augmentation generation sensible perception common sense estimative faculty sensible appetite locomotive faculty and animal motion I meddle not herein with all those smaller sort of Faculties which are peculiarly appropriate to Vegetables or Animals as swiftness sagacity strength and special artifices which belong not to them in the common nature of Vegetables or Animals but by certain specifical Instincts or Faculties because though it may be some of them are not found in the same kind and degree in the humane Nature yet they are such as are abundantly recompensed by that art and ingeny which appropriately belongs to the humane Nature 2. There are no Organs in the sensible Nature which yet are more perfect than those of the vegetable Nature subservient to the Faculties of Life and Sense which are wanting in the constitution of the humane Body at least in substance and equivalence 3. Those very Faculties and Organs subservient unto them in the vegetable or sensible Nature which are found in them are lodged in the humane Nature in far more excellency and perfection than they are in the vegetable or animal Nature So that if the Faculties or Organs subservient to the vegetable or animal Life in Man do differ in their state or composure from those of Brutes it differs for the better as obtaining a more exquisite perfection usefulness beauty and contexture than those of Brutes as may appear in the Hand of Man compared with the Foot of Beasts or Birds the Foot the Leg the Thigh of Man with those of Beasts and the like It is true the constitution of some Faculties and Organs of Sensibles is more accommodate to their fabrick and use than the like Organs of Man would be to the use of Brutes but simply comparing one with another the Organs of the humane Body are more curious and excellent than the Organs of the bare animal Nature And from hence it comes to pass that the full knowledge of the humane Faculties and Organs subservient to the animal Life in Man comprehends in effect all the like Faculties and Organs in the animal Nature though differing in some particular textures and positions with a proportionable advance by the access of excellence of the humane Nature 2. As to the specifical or appropriate Excellencies of the humane Nature above the most perfect Animals they come next to be considered It is true that Animals in proportion to the length of their Life attain their complement of their specifical perfection sooner in proportion than the humane Nature The animal Soul sooner expands and evolves it self to its full orb and extent than the humane Soul Therefore the Horse that lives naturally about thirty years comes to his full growth and perfect exercise of its animal Faculties in four years but Man that lives not ordinarily above seventy yeas comes not to the ripeness of his Intellectual Life 'till two and twenty or three and twenty years at least nor even to his full growth 'till nineteen or twenty So that what we say concerning Man in relation to the actings of his Mind must be applied to that state and age wherein his Soul hath fully as it were evolved it self and its Organs fully mature and disposed for the actings of his Soul He is long ripening but then his maturity and the complement thereof recompenseth the flowness of his maturation Now the Excellencies appropriate to the humane Nature are as before observed of two kinds 1. such as immediately concern the humane Nature it self or 2. such as are extrinsecal but yet relating to it Those things that are immediately residing in or part of the humane Nature come first to be considered And they are three 1. His Soul or intellectual and volitive Principle 2. His Body or corporeal part 3. The Compositum or Coalitum of both those Principles which complete the humane Nature The Soul comes first to be considered and therein these four things 1. It s Constitution or Nature 2. It s Original 3. Its Faculties 4. It s congenite Habits or rational Instincts 1. Touching the Constitution of the Intellectual Soul of Man I shall not in this place enter into a large discourse concerning it but reserve that consideration to its proper place only in general it is 1. An active principle 2. It is a substantial principle 3. It is not corporeal or material 4. It is not corruptible or mortal 2. Touching its Original whether it be by traduction or creation or participation I shall not here dispute but reserve it to its proper place for a fuller disquisition But whether the one way or the other it had its original there is no inconsistency but that it hath those essential qualifications above-mentioned 3. Touching its Faculties they are two the Understanding and the Will And here I shall not concern my self in the Inquiry whether the Faculties are the same with the Soul it self or the same one with the other and only distinct in notion whether the Will be any more than the complete or ultimate act of the Understanding determined
temperate Climates is more transparent and beautiful 2. There is no Animal hath any Organ of equal use to the Arm and Hand of a Man that Organum organorum an Organ accommodate to all the useful motions operations arts and uses of his life Man is born without any offensive or defensive weapons like to those of other Animals but by the usefulness and accommodation of this Organ and his Intellective faculty he maketh weapons and useth them he forgeth and mouldeth Metals builds Houses and Ships makes his Cloaths and Ornaments and exerciseth all Arts for use and ornament 3. There is no Creature that I know of hath the like structure of his Leg and Foot the former being only two to support his Body have greater and larger Muscles than any Animal of no greater proportionable bigness and the latter being the Basis of those Pillars are admirably fitted by their length and figure for his gressus progressivus 4. Since the Brain is the great Organ of Intellection in Man and of Imagination in Brutes which are the two noblest Faculties of either Nature it will not be amiss to examine the differences between the Brain of either and the Nerves proceeding from either wherein none that I know hath given more light than Doctor Willis in his Anatomy of the Head all therefore that I shall do herein shall be to gather up the most of those observable differences that lye dispersed in that Book 1. The humane Brain is in proportion to the Body much greater and larger than the Brains of Brutes having regard to the size and proportion of their Bodies and fuller of anfractus or sinuations and so more capable of greater diversity of employments and uses in the Perceptive Faculties 2. There are in the Brain certain portions called protuberantia annularis nates testes and that in those Brutes wherein this protuberantia annularis is largest in proportion those Brutes are of greatest sagacity and subtilty as Foxes Apes c. that though in Man those prominences called nates and testes are the least yet the protuberantia annularis is greater in proportion in Man than in any Animal the structure of this Organ being fitted to a greater degree of natural sagacity 3. That whereas in Brutes the only communication of the Brain with the Heart is by the nervus paris vagi derived from the Cerebellum and spreading its branches into the Muscle of the Heart in Man there is not only the same communication of that Nerve but a ramification of the nervus intercostalis is also inserted into the Muscle of the Heart whereby a greater communication between the Brain and Heart is maintained in Man than in Brutes 4. That other ramifications of this nervus intercostalis are derived into the Chest and Diaphragma whereby principally that peculiar affection of Laughter is excited more appropriate to Man together also those others of Sternutation and other natural actions common to Men and Beasts are excited but not from the like communication of that Nerve in Brutes And thus much shall serve to be spoken of the peculiarities of the Humane Body though what I before said touching the Faculties of the Animal Nature in Man must also be remembred touching the organical parts of his Body There is no Organ in the Brutal Body subservient to the Animal Faculties which is not found in the Humane Body with such variations and additions as render them more curious perfect useful and admirably accommodate to his Animal Life and Faculties But of this more fully hereafter 3. I shall now subjoin a Consideration of Man in his whole Compositum consisting of both his essential parts of Body and Soul and of the aggregation of the Faculties and Organs belonging to either so far forth as they evidence his appropriate and specifical Excellency above the Animal Nature The appropriate or specifical acts of the humane compositum are the capacity and faculty of instituted Signs expressive of the inward conceptions of the Mind which are of two kinds 1. Audible 2. Visible Signs The Audible Signs are instituted Speech or Language the formal nature whereof consists in two things 1. Articulate Voice 2. The accommodation of the Articulate Voice to the rendring or expressing of the inward thoughts or intentions of the Mind And herein is the great preference of the language of Man above that of Brutes or Birds who though they have audible signs that express something of their Imaginations or Appetites yet they extremely differ from humane speech 1. They are but short and transient like Interjections in speech whereby though they express the sudden motions of their Phantasie Appetite or Passions yet they carry not with them any distinct series or long train of their Imaginations they are short and sudden somewhat like Sighs or Ejulations in Man 2. They are not articulate nor orderly but short natural and broken 3. When Birds especially by the fabrick of their Tongue and Palate are taught to use articulate words yet they understand not their import nor do render any conceptions of their Phantasie by them nor can answer a question by them but use them insignificantly as the Organ or Pipe renders the Tune which it understands not And by the help of significant and articulate speech one Man expresseth the notions or conceptions of his Mind to another instructs another mutual commerce and society is maintained which could never be without instituted signs And this Act of instituted signs especially those of Speech or Language proceeds from the entire compositum the Mind instituting the signs and communicating its notions and desires by it and the Palate Larinx Tongue and Lips forming the Voice according to such institution whereunto they are most admirably accommodated by their Apertures Nerves and Muscles 2. The instituted visible Signs are Writings Gestures Tears Motions of the Eye Mouth and Face which were long to enumerate By means of writing former Ages transmit the Memorials of ancient times and things to posterity Men understand the sentiments purposes and desires of one another though absent and the living converse with those ancient Philosophers and others that are long since dead And now in this composition of the humane Nature we have these things observable 1. That in this contexture of the Humane Body and Intellectual Soul we have a Creature made up that is nexus utriusque mundi intellectualis scilicet corporei The next Range of Beings above him are the pure and immaterial Intelligences the next below him is the sensible Nature Man is as it were the Comes limitaneus of each Nature participating of both And we may observe that in the process of Natural Beings there seem some to be Creatures placed as it were in the Confines of several Provinces and participating something of either as in things that have life and that have not there is placed the Minerals between the inanimate and vegetable Province participating something analogical to either Between the vegetable
discovered ex praenotis per viam rationalis discursus Thus probably Men by the Signatures Tasts and Colours of Herbs bearing analogy to other things they knew concluded fairly touching their Nature and Use which by Tryal and Experience they improved into more fixed and stable Theorems and Conclusions And upon this account also many Practical Arts especially relating to Numbers Weight Measure and Mechanism had their production for the Rudiments of Proportion being lodged in the Mind they seem to have grown intentionally and ex industria into those various practices of Arithmetick Geometry and Mechanicks resulting from those principles per media processus rationalis and thus those practices of the Rules of Proportion Mechanical Motions Staticks Architecture Navigation Measuring of Distances and Quantities and infinite more did arise 4. Some things in their first discovery seem purely accidental and although possibly the operation of Reason and Tryal and Experiment might or may carry on the Invention into farther Improvements and Advances yet in the very first primo primum of the Discovery it may be accidental The old whether true or fabulous Discovery of Fire may serve to explain my conception wherein it is supposed that one sitting upon a Hill and tumbling down Flint stones upon the collision thereof he observed sparks of Fire which nevertheless he after improved by adding combustible materials to it and doubtless upon such and the like occurrences many Chymical and other accidental Discoveries have been made besides and beyond and without the intention of the Operator And I well knew a Person that had not capacity enough to deduce any thing of curiosity per processum rationalem yet by accidental dealing with Water and some Canes did arrive to a most admirable excellence in some Mechanical Works of that nature though he never had the Wit to give a reason of his performance of them 5. Some things have been found out by a kind of necessity and exigence of Humane Nature such as Clothes Societies Places of Defence and Habitation and possibly much of the plainer sort of Tillage and Husbandry Venter magister artis ingeniÃque largitor and commonly these were the earliest Inventions because Nature stood early in need of them And hence it came to pass that they who had Coelum clementius that afforded them necessaries without the assistance of considerable Industry continued longest rude and uncultivated And therefore if the Husbandry of Ceres or Triptolemus came late into the World it was because those Eastern Countries then inhabited abounded with plenty of Fruits which supplied the defect of Husbandry till the World grew more dispersed and fuller of Inhabitants and transmigrated into parts of less natural fertility 6. Some things have been discovered not only by the Ingeny and Industry of Mankind but even the inferior Animals have subministred unto Man the invention or discovery of many things both Natural and Artificial and Medicinal unto which they are guided and in which they are directed by secret and untaught instincts which would be infinite to prosecute The Fable or History of Glaucus observing Fishes to leap into the Sea upon tasting an Herb by the shore the Weasel using Plantane as an Antidote the wounded Stag using Dittany to draw out the Arrow if true and divers others give us some Analogical Instances And these are ordinarily the Methods of Discoveries The Things or Objects discovered are principally of two kinds viz. 1. Such things as are already lodged in Nature as Natural Causes and Effects and those various Phaenomena in Nature whereof some lye more open to our Senses and daily observation others are more occult and hidden and though accessible in some measure to our Senses yet not without great search and scrutiny or some happy accident others again are such as we cannot attain to any clear sensible discovery of them either by reason of their remoteness distance and unaccessibleness as the Heavenly Bodies and things closed up in the bowels of the Earth or by reason of their subtil and curious texture escaping the clear and immediate access of Sense as Spiritual Natures the Soul and its various Faculties and Operations and the Reasons or Methods of them wherein for the most part our acquests touching them are but Opinion and Conjecture wherein Men vary according to the variety of their Apprehensions and Phantasies and wherein because they want that manuduction of Sense which is our best and surest Guide in the first Instance in matters Natural Men range into incertain inevident and unstable Notions 2. Such things as are Artificial wherein some Discoveries are simply new others are but accessions and additaments to things that were before mentioned Some things are of convenience utility or necessity to Humane Nature or the condition of Mankind some things are of curiosity some things are found out casually or accidentally some things intentionally and out of those Principles or Notions that seem to be lodged originally in the Mind Now upon these Considerations premised it seems that the late Discovery of many things in Nature and many Inventions in Art are not a sufficient Evidence of the Origination or late Origination of Mankind at least taken singly and apart 1. In things Natural the variety is so great and the various combinations therein so many that it seems possible that there should not have been a full discovery of the whole state of things Natural unto the Minds of Men although there were supposed an eternal duration of Mankind We may give our selves a Specimen hereof if we look but back upon that one Piece of Nature with which we have reason to be best acquainted namely our selves which by reason of our vicinity to our selves our daily conversation with our selves and others of the same Species our daily necessities and opportunities of inquiring into our selves and the narrowness of our own nature in comparison of the vast and various bulk of other things seems to render us a Subject capable of being very fully discovered And besides all this the more inquisitive and judicious part of Mankind have industriously set themselves for many Ages to make the best discovery they could of the nature of Man Hippocrates the Father of Physicians who lived in the 82 d Olympiad and above 2000 years since busied himself much and profoundly in this Enquiry and a succession of industrious observing and learned Physicians and Naturalists have pursued the Chase with all care and vigilancy and by the help of Anatomical Dissections have searched into those various Maeanders of the Veins Arteries Nerves and Integrals of the Humane Body Yet for all this in this sensible and narrow part of Humane Nature the husk and shell thereof how much remains after all this whereof we are utterly ignorant So that notwithstanding all the Discoveries that have been made by the Ancients and those more curious and plentiful Discoveries by the latter Ages there still remains so much undiscovered that leaves still room for Admiration
and uses For although the Almighty Wisdom and Power could have made all this Fabrick of the World in its full complement and perfection in one moment and although he produced and perfected Vegetables Brutes and Man in one moment without the gradual procedures through those several stations and degrees which Nature now observeth and so he could have done in the production of all other the Integrals of the Universe yet he seems in some parts of this Processus formativus of the Universe to use sometimes such Methods Means and Instruments and such Times Periods and Orders as might seem to bear in some measure a congruity to a Natural Procedure thus he used that Motion or Agitation of the Spirit for the ripening and influencing of the vast Mass he first begins with the production of those more simple constituent Particles of Matter which might yield Matter suited and prepared to Mixt Natures And it is not unreasonable for us to think that this great flaming Light in the first three days of the Creation was used as a most suitable Instrument for the Rarefaction Digestion Separation and Distribution of the remaining part of the Chaotical Matter in those greater Agitations that it had in the production of the Aether the separation of the Water and the arefaction of the Earth which Processes required a more severe and violent active Instrument than was necessary or indeed suitable to those smaller Mutations which were after made and probably if that piercing and great Lucid Nature had continued its Revolutions about the World it would have been too strong and violent either to the production or conservation of those Animals and Mankind that were now to be produced And so the diffused Light that circulated about the Universe is now this fourth day distributed into these several Heavenly Bodies 1. Because now its use in that former state and method of its existence ceased 2. It was now for the use of the Universe to have it distributed and ordered into those several Vessels the Sun and Stars that might with a gentler and better regulated Heat and Motion influence the World 3. It was now more for the Beauty Order and Ornament of the Universe for the Glory and Honour of the Divine Wisdom Power and Goodness to distribute this Light into several Vessels and according to various measures and proportions and accommodated with several Motions than to keep it in one vast and terrible Body circulating the Universe which unrefracted might have been too penetrating and violent to the other parts of Nature And this seems to be the Method of the Origination of the Heavenly Bodies For though the firt Verse tells us that In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth we have no reason to suppose that the Etherial Bodies and the Heavenly Luminaries were completed in the moment of Time whatever may be conjectured touching the Coelum Empyraeum for it is evident that Light the first-born of the Universe was not made till the first day the Expansum or Aether till the second day nor the Heavenly Host the Planetary and Fixed Stars till the fourth day I shall not here contend much touching the System of the Universe whether the Earth be the Center thereof or the Sun whether it consist of so many several Systems or Vortices whether every Fixed Star hath its Vortex and the Sun the Center of the Planetary Vortex only thus much I shall say 1. That this Diving Hypothesis delivered to us by the hand of Moses seems wholly to contradict the Supposition of Solid Orbs and strongly concludes that the Heavenly Bodies are moved in liquido Aethere 2. It seems rather to countenance that System of the Universe that supposeth the Earth to be the common Center thereof than 〈◊〉 the imaginary Hypothesis of Copernicus Galileus Kepler or Des Cartes 3. That it utterly contradicts the Hypothesis of Aristotle and Ocellus and the Pythagoreans touching the Eternity of the World or of the Heavens and likewise the Fiction of Democritus and Epicurus of the casual Coalition of the Universe by the motion or interfering of Atoms 3. I come to consider of the Fifth Days Work touching the production of Fish and Fowls Vers 20. And God said Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven and God created great whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters brought forth abundantly after their kind and every winged fowl after its kind and God saw that it was good The great Engin of the Heavenly Bodies being now constituted in that excellent state and order for the use and conservation of animal Life God Almighty proceedeth in a most exquisite order for the production of Animals and because the Waters were in themselves a more ductile and possibly a more fertil Body than the Earth and also because caeteris paribus the Fowls and Fishes are not of an equal perfection in their natures to the Brutes or Terrestrial Animals for these have certainly a more digested constitution greater variety and curiosity in their bodily texture and a higher Spirit and Soul of nobler Instincts and more capable of Discipline than the Fowl or Fishes Therefore as the production of Vegetables anteceded the production of Animals so the production of Animals aquatil and volatil preceded the production of terrestrial Animals What may else be said in relation to this Days Work I shall deliver in the Consideration of the next first Part of the sixth Days Work Therefore 4. The first Part of the sixth Days Work comprized the production of Terrestrial Animals Vers 24. And God said Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind and cattel and every creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind and it was so The Reasons why Terrestrial Animals had their production after the Fowls and Fishes have been partly before intimated and shall be here somewhat farther considered And they are these 1. Although Almighty God be not bound or straitned in his Operation to the sequaciousness of the Matter yet it is not improper for us to suppose that he may pursue the Laws of his own making where it consists with his design and intention The production of Vegetables by the Earth was indeed earlier but then the energy of his Instrument the Light perchance was stronger than after the distribution thereof into the Receptacles of the Heavenly Luminaries 2. Ad plurimum the nature of Terrestrial Animals was a more refined nature than that of Fowls and Fishes and therefore as the Matter might reasonably expect a longer mora for its Concoction so the Method of Creation caeteris paribus proceeded from the less elaborate Integrals of Mixt Bodies to the more elaborate concluding with Man And this preference of the Brutes above Fowls and Fishes appears 1. In the manner of their natural procreation the Brutes being ad plurimum vivipara the
others arising ad plurimum ex ovo 2. In the great variety of their bodily composure the texture of the Bodies of Brutes being far more curious and fuller of variety than others 3. Ad plurimum the animal Faculties of the brutal Soul are far more perfect than those of others their Phantasies and Memories refined they have greater and more lively Images of Reason and more capable of Discipline than either Fowls or Fishes Now touching the production of Animals whether Terrestrial Aquatil or Volatil we may observe that they are in the ordinary course of Nature of two kinds Some which arise among us no otherwise nor in any other manner than ex semine which we usually call perfect Animals and arising by univocal generation others there are that be imperfect arising spontaneously in the Earth Air and Water as Worms Flies and some sort of small Fishes and watry Insects This being premised I shall now set down some Suppositions which seem to me truly to explicate the production of these Animals which are these that follow 1. Although the predominat Matter in the constitution of Fowls and Fishes were Water and in the constitution of Terrestrial Animals were Earth yet that Water nor that Earth were not simply such but were mixed and impregnated with the other Elementary Principles 2. That all the Species of perfect Animals of all kinds were constituted in their several Sexes in the fifth and sixth day of the Creation but yet we must not think that all those kinds which we now see were at first created but only those primitive and radical Species How many sorts of Animals do we now see that yet possibly are not of the same Species but have accidental diversifications as we may observe in the several Shapes and Bodies of Dogs Sheep Pyes Parots which possibly at first were not so diversified some variation of the same Species happen by mixt Coition some by diversity of Climates and other accidents 3. That the first Individuals in their distinction of Sexes were not produced according to those Methods of Nature which they now hold nor ex aliquo praeexistente semine but by the immediate efficiency of Almighty God out of the Matter prepared or designed for their Constitution 4. That they were made in the first instant of their Constitution in the full perfection and complement and stature of their individual and specifical nature and did not gradually increase according to the procedure of animal augmentation at this day and the reason is because those gradual augmentations arise from the Seminal Principle which gradually expands it self to the full growth but here they arose not from any such Seminal Principle but the Hen was before the Egg. 5. There was no mean portion of Time between their Formation and Animation but both were together they were living Beings and living Souls and living Creatures as soon as they were formed 6. That consequently the Formation of the Body of these Animals was not as now it is by the Formative Power of the Soul which must needs be gradual and successive as we see it is and must be at this day in all natural Generations but the Formation and Information of them was by virtue of the immediate Fiat Determination or Ordination of the Divine Will 7. That in their Origination the Species of these Animals were determined neither from the Matter nor from the universal Cause the Celestial Heat but by the Divine Intention and Ordination 8. That by the same Divine Ordination and Intention the Faculties specifically belonging to every Individual were annexed and alligated to it especially the power conficiendi semen prolificum speciei propagandae ex mutua utriusque fexus conjunctione 9. That although by the Divine Power and Ordination all these perfect Animals did arise from the Earth yet that Prolifick Power of propagating of them was never delegated or committed to the Earth or any 〈◊〉 other Casual or Natural Cause but only to the Seminal Nature derived from their Individuals and disposed according to that Law of propagation of their kind alligated as before to their specifical and individual nature And therefore it its perfectly impossible that any of these perfect Animals can be casually or naturally or accidentally produced by any Preparation of Matter or by any Influence of the Heavens without the miraculous interposition of Almighty Power because the Earth or those Influences have not this power concredited to them but their production is irresistibly alligated to the Semen innatum and conjunction of Sexes the Earth can as naturally produce a Sun or a Star as it can a Man or a perfect Animal 10. Whether those imperfect or equivocal Animals were created or no it is not altogether clear possibly some might be then produced whose kinds were likewise producible spontaneously after but it seems beyond contradiction that all were not 11. As by virtue of that general Commission or intrinsick Prolifick Power given to the Earth to produce spontaneous Herbs as Grass c. it doth naturally produce such Herbs so by virtue of that common Commission given by Almighty God to the Earth and Water and to that Spirit of Nature diffused in it it doth naturally produce those equivocal insect Animals which arise out of them The same Law of the Creator that hath eternally excluded or rather not committed to the Earth or Water the power of producing perfect Animals hath given and committed to them by concurrence of that Vital Heat of the Sun and the common Spirit of Nature residing in them a Productive Power of some equivocal insect Animals in Matter fitly prepared Touching therefore the Origination of Insects I shall declare my thoughts as followeth 1. That by virtue of the Divine Fiat the Earth at first did produce some Individuals of several kinds which is imported under the words Every creeping thing after its kind 2. That as I have before shewn the greatest part of the Insects that are commonly produced and seem to be spontaneous productions are yet the univocal and seminal productions of Insects of the same kind 3. That yet it is a certain Truth that some Insects are and have an Origination since the first Creation without any formal univocal seminal production some out of Putrefaction some out of Vegetables some by very strength and fracedo of the Earth and Waters quickned by the vigorous Heat of the Sun which infuseth into some Particles of Matter well prepared and digested a kind of Vital and Seminal Principle Some have thought the very Sun and Earth are endued with a Vital yea and with a kind of Sensitive Nature and thereby enabled as it were to spin some prepared Matter into vital and sentient Semina for those insect Animals But we shall not need to trouble our selves with that incertain Speculation we are sure that the greatest part of the Superficies of the Earth being daily and hourly impregnated with the corrupted and dissolved Particles of Vegetables and Animals is
Vocal Command given out to the Matter but the secret Command and Determination of the Divine Will governed the Matter into an immediate conformable Production according to the Idea residing in the Divine Understanding He spake and it was done be commanded and it stood fast This best became the Majesty and Sovereignty of the Lord of all things CAP. III. Concerning the Production and Formation of Man HAving taken the former brief Survey of the History of the Creation and Formation of the rest of the Universe I shall now proceed to what I principally intended in the discussion of that History namely the Formation of Mankind Gen. 1.26 And God said Let us make Man in our own image after our likeness and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth so God made man in his own image in the image of God created he him male and female created he them and God blessed them and said unto them Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fishes Touching the Creation of Man I shall observe these things 1. The Efficient of this first Production of Mankind was Almighty God by the counsel and determination of his own Will The Creation of Man is ushered in with a Prologue unlike the Creation of other things viz. by a kind of deliberation not as if the Divine Wisdom stood in need of counsel advice or concurrence of others or of a mora deliberativa with himself for known unto him were all his Works from the beginning and by one simple instantaneous and indivisible Act he foresees what is fit to be done and judgeth and determineth the same but it is added as a Mark of Attention and an Elogy of Prelation of this Work of the Creation of Mankind above the rest of the visible Creatures Some of the Ancients have thought this Deliberation was real and to have been made with the superior World of Heavenly Intelligences Nec si fas sit ita loqui Deus quicquam fecerit donec illud expenderit in familia superiori and it should seem that the Opinion of Plato in his Timaeus That Almighty God did advise with the Dii ex Diis or the Intelligences or Angelick Natures and used their assistance in the Creation of the Bodies of Men though he himself formed their Souls seems to be derived from the inspection of the Mosaical History or Tradition of it whereof he gave us his Sense or Exposition that this faciamus hominem was by the concurrence or subordinate cooperation of Angels Others with far greater evidence do think it was the Deliberation and Conclusion of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity And some again interpret it to be only a Majestick Expression touching Almighty God more regali in the Plural Number but touching these Conjectures I shall say no more but only this That the first Origination and Production of Man was by the immediate Efficiency of Almighty God not as if God Almighty used any Manual or Physical Plasmation of a Man as the Statuary makes his Statue or as the Poets feign Prometheus moulded up his molle lutum into the Humane Shape and animated him by diffusion of Fire into him fetcht from Heaven but by the Word or Determination or Fiat of his Omnipotent Will Man was formed and made 2. The constituent Components out of which he was made were of two kinds 1. His Corporeal and Animal Nature was the same with the Matter of other Terrestrial Animals namely the Elementary Matter whereof Earth was the predominant 2. His Spiritual Constituent as I may call it though in union with the Sensible Power it be his constituent Form was a Spiritual Substance created and infused by Almighty God Gen. 2.7 And God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul This Text gives us briefly 1. The Matter of his Corporeal and Animal Constitution the Dust of the Ground or as elsewhere Red Clay 2. The Nature or Kind of this other constituent part the Breath of Life a Vital Spiritual Intellectual Substance or Nature 3. The Union thereof to the Body and Animal Nature breathed into him 4. The result from that Union Man became a living Soul the whole Composition taking denomination from his nobler essential Constituent And this short History gives us the best account that can be of the true Nature of Man namely that he consists of two essential constituent Parts 1. His corporeal and animal nature which though it were not only gradually but specifically different from and advanced above the Brutal Nature both in the Elegance and Usefulness and Majesty of his corporeal Fabrick and in the excellency and perfection of his animal Faculties as in due time shall be shewn Yet in his essential part he seemed to have a nature in some way common with them both being material and both their Faculties of the Animal Nature directed and subservient to a Life of Sense and therefore corruptible and mortal in it self 2. His Intellectual Nature which is spiritual immortal created immediately by Almighty God that as in his Animal Natureâ— he was the highest of living corporeal and visible Creatures so in his Soul or Intellectual Nature he seems to be constituted in the lowest rank or range of Intellectual and Immaterial Beings by this means he seemed to be Nexus utriusque orbis I have before observed in the Order of Natural Beings with which we are acquainted that there seems to be an admirable gradation in things and the lower rank of Natural Existences have some rough draughts and strokes and shadows of those perfections which are in the superior Minerals are a degree below Vegetables yet they seem to have some shadow of the Vegetable Life in their growth increase and specifick configurations The lowest degree of Life seems to be the Vegetables yet in many of them and their Faculties they seem to have some kind of rough strokes or draughts of the Sensitive Nature and the highest advances of the Vegetable Nature seem to come up to the confines and borders of the lowest Form of Sensible Beings and to participate of somewhat of Sense which appears not only in the natural production of Insects out of the finest parts and effluxes of most Vegetable Natures but also that some such things there are that seem in their very nature of Plants to have a kind of lower connexion of the Animal Nature in them as appears in the Sensitive Plant or Planta modesta and those Canes in the Kingdom of Angola that are filled with a Worm growing from and continuous with it called Trombe Again in the Animal Province there are divers sensible Insects both aquatil volatil and terrestrial that seem to be in the very next Rank of Nature to Vegetables and
condition of his Obedience to the Command of God and upon the breach of that Condition were either utterly lost as the indissolubility of the Union of the Compositum by one Man's Disobedience Sin entred into the World and Death by Sin Others were abated as the Excellency of his Knowledge Righteousness the fruition of Happiness the Perfection of his Sovereignty over the Creatures the Gloriousness and Beauty and much of the Vigour of his Body the exquisite Order and Subordination of his Faculties but his Essentials the Immortality of his Soul the Faculties of Intellection and Will and the Natural Beauty and Usefulness of his Body remains notwithstanding that terrible Concussion whereof somewhat more hereafter 4. We have the Method of this Production of Man it was not by or from any meer Natural Cause but by the immediate Command of the Divine Will Wisdom and Power it was not from any Semen naturally accidentally or intentionally formed and so by a gradual maturation and growth ex uteris terrestribus or as the foetus humanus is perfected at this day For it was not possible that any such Seminal Principle should be formed casually or by any meer Natural Cause as hath been already shewn And although the Divine Power could have perfected all as well Man as the other Animals by first forming such a Semen and giving it either a gradual or speedy production as Insects are at this day produced yet 1. It was utterly superfluous to have used such a processus formativus ex semine because it required no less than an Almighty Power to have moulded and fashioned or actuated such a Semen as to have produced Man by an immediate Supernatural Formation and Production and therefore since the same Power was requisite in both it is not at all necessary nor reasonable to suppose so long a process as first to form a Semen and by a Seminal Process to have perfected the Humane Nature and the Holy History expresly imports the contrary 2. If we suppose a Semen prepared by the Divine Power that Production that must arise thereupon must either be immediate and sudden if not absolutely instantaneous or it must be gradual and pass through all these spaces of Time gradual Formation and accession of Growth and Increase as we see in embryone foetu nuper nato We cannot suppose the former but we must suppose it to be otherwise than natural and call in the Divine Power to effect it as much as in an instantaneous formation sine praecedente semine And we cannot suppose the latter because it is expresly contrary to the description of the Humane Production for it was done within the compass of the Sixth Day and the formation and perfecting of the Humane Nature was immediately finished after the Omnipotent Command and Determination of the Will of God it was no sooner said faciamus hominem c. but it was done It is true in that ordinary Law which Almighty God hath instituted in Nature already established by him there are regular and successive and gradual procedures and it is convenient it should be so and it is true also in this short period of the Six Days Work within which the Universe was finished Almighty God observed a certain convenient Order making that to precede which was fittest and most useful to precede in order to the production of things but as to the speed and dispatch of Productions the Almighty God used the Majesty that became the Excellency of his Greatness and obsequious Matter presently yielded to the Power of his Command Fiat factum est Psal 33.9 He said and it was done he commanded and it stood fast Therefore although now in settled Nature and according to the standing Laws of the Divine Wisdom Man is first conceived ex semine then lodgeth 10 Months in utero muliebri wherein during that time he is gradually formed and perfected and then after his Birth gradually increaseth passeth through the impotency of Infancy the weaknesses of Childhood and the follies of Youth before he comes to a ripe and full age yet it was not so here in the same moment the Body is formed in its full and perfect nature and the Animal Soul and Faculties together with it and the Rational Soul infused in the same moment without any priority of Time but only of Order and Nature So that Man was at the very same moment a perfect Organical Body with all his Nerves Veins Viscera Bones and Parts conformed a Vital and Sensitive Nature joyned with it and a Rational Soul infused without first living the Life of a Plant then of an Animal then of a Man the whole Scene was performed in one moment and so it became both the Greatness of the Divine Majesty and Power and so it was necessary to be in the first production of Man although in the succeeding procedure of natural Generations it must be and was otherwise because the supreme Wisdom and Will judged it so And although to any Man that will duly consider almost any thing there must of necessity be another Rule or Law for the first production of things than there is or may be in the ordinary regiment and governing of Generations when Nature is once established yet the want of this Consideration hath bred all those vain Errors of those Philosophers that asserted the Eternity of the World and of those others who being not satisfied with that Hypothesis but driven by a kind of necessity of Reason to acknowledge an Origination of Mankind yet could not deliver themselves from fancying that Humane Productions must needs be as like those they now know as they could well frame them And therefore according to these Men the Earth must be conceited to be Mater and the Sun vice Patris and the Earth must have her Uteri and Succus nutritius and the Increase of Mankind must be by some such gradual process as we see in natural productions or sponte nata and they cannot easily bring their Minds to believe the instantaneous production of Man by the immediate Power of God because it hath a gradual process in ordinary natural Generations and yet the same Men can give themselves leave to imagin Hominem oriri posse sicut blitum though never Experience of former Ages since the existence of Men upon the Earth give us any Example of it bating only the Fictions of some Poets Maimonides lib. 2. cap. 27. hath observed this Mistake and singularly confutes it by evincing That if Men go by this Rule of Judgment the nature of things in their Original as they find them in their Constitution being constituted they will disbelieve the most certain Truths Neque argumentari licet ullo modo à natura rei alicujus post illius generationem firmam subsistentiam in perfectione sua ad naturam ejus eo tempore quo movebatur ad generationem quod si verò his erras plurima tibi orientur dubia absurda ut pro
which we also admit as to all his Constituents at least but his Soul and therefore the great Debate hath been touching the Efficient or that Being or Nature or whatever we shall call it that first compounded formed and constituted the first Parents of Mankind in that essential and individual state consonant to that specification of Humane Nature which we daily now see Every thing that hath a beginning of Being must either have it from it self or from some other active efficient and constituent Power or Nature antecedent to it in time or at least in Nature or both To suppose that the Humane Nature at first constituted it self were to suppose it to have a propriety of existence to it self which were a palpable absurdity and contradiction for then it should be before it was Therefore it is necessary that the first Origination of Humane Nature should be from some other beginning or cause antecedent to it besides the Matter out of which it was constituted And whatsoever the Being or Cause originating Humane Nature was it must be in nature of an Efficient namely something that did actively put together the constituent parts thereof and formed it into that consistence and existence whereby he became Man We cannot by any means suppose any such Efficient or Being or thing that did subire rationem efficientis but one of these four 1. An uncertain casual conflux of Particles of Matter that casually compounded a Semen humanae naturae and so though the immediate Semen thus constituted may obtain the Name or Notion of the immediate Efficient yet the true Efficient of that Semen if we may be allowed to call it by that name was Chance or Fortune 2. An implanted blind determinate something which we call Nature which by a fatal and necessary connexion of surd and irrational Causes and Effects produced the first Parents of Mankind as the like Nature by the like necessity produceth yearly Worms and Flies and other Insects that have not their existence by univocal Seed Both these two Suppositions have been before examined and rejected as impares huic negotio 3. The illapse of some pre-existent or animating formative Principle which we may well call the Soul or Anima that as in the Generation of Mankind by ordinary procreation we see the formative power is some refined active Spirit or Soul in semine delitescens that fashions the Matter and actuates it with vital sensible Faculties and Operations so the illapse of some such active substance or powerful Being illapsing into Matter and united to it might form it into that constitution which it enjoyed 4. and Lastly Or some superior powerful wise and intellectual Being that did form fashion actuate and constitute the first Parents of Mankind The two former being as before laid aside I shall use a few words touching the third Supposition of which little hath been before said and so pals to the fourth and last and true Supposition of the First Efficient of Humane Nature 3. Therefore touching the third Supposition concerning the production of Mankind by virtue of such Illapse of Forms we may suppose it to be intended one of these two ways 1. Either that with Origen we should imagin a Mundus animarum that had real and individual Subsistences Or 2. that there were some common Element of animate Existence not divided into individual Existences but one common rational and vital Nature whose Particles illapsing into Matter might produce such first Existences of Mankind and so though in their union to Matter they do subire rationem formae yet they do likewise subire rationem efficientis as to the formation of Mankind as the vital Principle in the Egg becomes not only the form of the Chick but also in the first formation thereof is the disposer of its Organs and exercise of its Faculties and so doth subire rationem efficients immediati in the formation of the Foetus As to both these in general I say 1. That they are precarious Suppositions without any just reason to evidence either that there were such pre-existing individual Souls or a common reasonable Spirit Again 2. The Supposition that these should be the immediate Efficients of the Humane Nature is likewise precarious and inevident 3. Even they that suppose either such an individual or common pre-existing Nature must be forced to suppose them eternal independent Beings and this will have as many difficulties in it as the Eternity of Mankind or else if they be supposed created Beings yet still there will be a necessary recourse unto an infinite uncreated eternal Being that must create them And 4. consequently the Framers of these Suppositions do with much more difficulty and laboriousness form intermediate Principles of the Origination of Mankind which with less difficulty and greater congruity may be resolved into the immediate Efficiency of Almighty God according to the Divine History 5. And besides all this if Men will needs suppose a Formation of Man by the illapsing of Souls into prepared Matter because they see this is the Method of Formation in the ordinary course of Generation now they must also suppose the progress of the Formation and Maturation of the Humane Nature This way must be gradual and successive which will be attended with all those difficulties which are before observed in the Supposition of casual or natural production of Man in his first Origination But in particular to those several Suppositions and First touching the first of these The Opinion of the pre-existence of Souls of Men and their descent into Bodies though it hath been countenanced by Plato and some that follow him hath chiefly as it seems been entertained by some of the Jews and some few Christians both recognizing the true God the Immortality of the Soul and future Resurrection For the ancient Jewish Opinion vide wisdom 8.19 20. For I was a witty Child and had a good spirit rather being good I came into a Body undefiled Among Christians Origen much asserted this Opinion But whatever may be said touching the truth or falshood of the Opinion it self it can no way support the primitive Origination of Mankind by the illapsing of such Souls into elementary Matter First It exceeds the power and activity of such imagined pre-existent Souls to form and animate Matter into the consistence of a Man without the intervention either of the immediate power of God or at least without that instituted Method fixed by God in the Generation of Mankind ex semine And that it doth so exceed the activity of Souls thus to do appears in this that although there is according to that Supposition of a Mundus animarum a sufficient stock of existing Souls and if there were not yet those that once informed humane Bodies survived after the dissolutio compositi and yet we never heard since the first formation of Man that any such new formation hath been made nor any illapse of any such Soul into any other Foetus but what hath
conformable unto that Nature which Mankind now hath and as we have no reason to believe they were any way inferior to the present Perfection of Humane Nature so we have very great reason to suppose them constituted in a greater degree of Beauty and Perfection than the most perfect Man that hath been ever since their Formation except the incarnate Son of God Although I do not intend in this place to take a large Survey of the Perfection of the Humane Nature because it is in part done already and I shall reserve it God willing for its proper place and season yet because my Scope here is to evince that the Supposition of the first production of Mankind is an unquestionable Evidence of the Existence of a most Wise and Intelligent Being and that the strength of that Evidence rests in the due Contemplation of the Excellence of the Humane Nature and Faculties and those other Appendices thereunto and that it is not possible to conceive any other but an Intelligent Efficient working by Choice Wisdom and Appropriation should be the first Producent Former and Constituent of such a Nature I shall take a short Survey of the Humane Nature Perfections and Appendices which may give any Man a handle to improve it farther to the same end leaving the fuller Discourse of the Humane Nature as a Reserve also whereupon a fuller Improvement may be made of this Consideration and Conclusion And upon the diligent Observation of this Argument it will evidently appear That the modelling framing compounding ordering and endowing the first Prototype and first Copy of the Humane Nature was neither an Act or Event of Chance or of a Surd Inanimate Unintelligent Nature but was a Contrivance and Work of Design Skill and Intention a Transcript of that Idea which resided in an intelligent Being a Work of a wise and powerful Being yea such a Work as could never have been made by any less than the most intelligent wise and powerful Being exceeding the more single Wisdom and Activity of any created Intelligence at least unless acting in and by the Commission Virtue and Strength of the Almighty God Now these Excellencies in Man that demonstrate an Intelligent Efficient are of two kinds 1. Such as immediately concern his nature 2. Such as are distinct from it but relating to it 1. Therefore concerning those Excellencies that concern immediately his Nature and these discover themselves and the Wisdom of their Efficient And these Excellencies are considered either simply in themselves or 2. Compositè and with the several Subserviences and Accommodations to their Ends and Uses As to the first Consideration there are many Excellencies in the Humane Nature which manifest a far more eminent Excellency in his first Efficient The Symmetry Beauty Majesty and admirable Composure of his Body to which there can be nothing added nor detracted without a blemish to it The admirable Faculties of his Soul those that concern him in his lowest rank of Life the Faculty by which he is nourished those that concern him in his middle rank of Life Soul and Sensation Memory and Appetite those that concern him in his supreme rank of Life Intellect and Will those that concern him in his whole Compositum the Generative Faculty The admirable Union of his Soul to his Body whereby he becomes one Intellectual Being though consisting of Principles of differing natures These and such as these would be largely prosecuted for they do evidence an intellectual most wise Efficient that could thus erect and thus endow such a Fabrick But that which I most reckon upon is that admirable Accommodation that is found in the nature of Man which doth most undeniably demonstrate an intellectual and wise Efficient working by Intention and Design for instance It is indeed a very great evidence of an Artist that can make the Wheel of a Watch or the Spring or the Ballance but the destination of the Spring to the String and the String to the Fusee and the accommodation of every Wheel and their position and fabrick one to another and the Ballance to correct and check the excess of the Motion and the Index to the Table and to fit the Table with Divisions suitable to the Hours and to put all into such a regular Motion as demonstrates the Hour of the Day This adaptation of things of various and several Natures and Structures one to another and all to some common End or Design is so great an evidence of an Intellectual Being that works by Intention by Election by Design and Appropriation that nothing can be opposed against it And therefore I rather choose to prosecute this compound Consideration of the Humane Nature the adaptation and appropriation of things therein one to another and to common Use which is the most evident Argument of such an Efficient as I have before described in the first Fabrication of Humane Nature It were the business of a Volume to pursue all the Particulars of this kind I shall only instance in some 1. The admirable accommodation of the several Parts of the Humane Body to make up one Continuum yet consisting of divers Parts distinct in their individuals and kinds the mortising of the Bones one into another the binding them together by Nerves and Muscles and Tendons the Veins and Arteries for the carrying of the Blood diffused by several Ramifications from their Roots to the uttermost extremities of the Body their differing Coats Anastomoses and means of Communication for the Circulation of the Blood the distributions and ramifications of the Nerves indeed the whole Frame of the Humane Body is an Engin of most admirable contrivance and mutual accommodation of Parts which is so much the more admirable because many of the Parts are distinct not only in the Roots and Numbers but in their Nature and Constitution yet make up one most beautiful Continuum by the mutual accommodation and admirable contignation of the several Integrals thereof 2. The admirable accommodation of Faculties to the convenience and use of Humane Nature for Instance the Digestive Faculty to preserve Life the Generative Faculty to preserve the Species his Faculties of Sense are accommodated to a Sensible Being for as much as he is to converse in a Corporeal World and with Corporeal Beings there is no one quality of Corporeal Nature that he hath occasion to use or converse with but he hath a Faculty by one of his five Senses to receive and discern Again in his Intellective Faculty it admirably serves him for the Ends and Uses of his Being he was appointed to govern direct and rule other Animals and therefore he hath the advantage of a superior Faculty above them whereby he is able to exercise that Direction and Government He was made to be the Spectator of the great Work of God to consider and observe them to glorifie and serve that God that made them and he is accordingly furnished with an Intellective Faculty answerable to his condition 3.
Will of God was sufficient to bring Being out of Nothing so the like determination of the same Will was sufficient to form Man out of the Dust of the ground without taking in a subordination or instrumentality of Angels Again if we should suppose the cooperation of Angels in the Formation of the Body of Man it must be in the strength virtue and efficiency of the first Cause which as it gave the Angels their Being so it must give them the efficacy power and virtue to be instrumental in this Formation which as we have no warrant so we have no probable reason to admit since the first Cause was all sufficient for this Effect without their assistance 4. The admirable Structure of the Body of Man the accommodation of it to Faculties the furnishing of it with Faculties accommodate to it even as its Animal Nature though we take not in the reasonable intellectual Soul imports in it a Wisdom Power and Efficacy above the Power of any created Nature to effect If it should be in the power of an Angel by applying actives to passives to produce an Insect nay a perfect Animal yet the Constitution and Frame of so much of that in Man that concerns his Animal Nature were too high a Copy for an Angelick Nature to write unless thereunto deputed and commissionated by the Infinite God which Commission we no where find and I am very sure a bare Naturalist will not suppose 5. Again there is that necessity of a suitableness and accommodation of the Parts of the Body to the Faculties of the Soul and è converso that any the least disproportion or disaccommodation of one to the other would spoil the whole Work and make them utterly unserviceable and unapplicable one to the other It was therefore of absolute necessity that the same skill and dexterity that was requisite to the first Formation of the Soul must be used and employed in the Formation of the Body and if an Angel were unequal to the making up and ordering of the Soul he could never be sufficient to make a fit organical Body exactly suitable to it Upon the whole matter I therefore conclude That not only the Soul but the very Animal Nature in Man and not only that but the Formation and Destination of his Bodily Frame was not only the Work of an Intelligent Being but of the Infinite and Omnipotent Intelligent Being who in the same moment formed his Body and organized it with immediate Organs and Instruments of Life and Sense and created his Intellectual Nature and united it to him whereby Man became a living Soul And this as the necessary Evidence of Reason doth first drive us to acknowledge a Being or first Formation of the Humane Nature ex non genitis and secondly to acknowledge that this first Formation of the Nature of Man was not by Chance Casualty or a meer Syntax of Natural Causes but by an Intelligent Efficient so we are upon the very same and a greater Evidence of Reason driven to acknowledge that Intelligent Efficient to be the Great and Wise and Glorious God no other Cause imaginable being par tali negotio And indeed if once we can bring Men but to this one Concession That the original Efficient of the Humane Nature was an Intelligent Being any Man pretending to Reason will with much less difficulty admit that Efficient to be the Almighty God than any other invisible intelligent Efficient which we usually call Angels or Intelligences And the Reasons are these 1. Because though we that are acquainted with the Divine Truths do as really believe that there are Angels as well as Men yet the Natural Evidences of the Existence of Almighty God are far more evident and convincing even upon a Rational and Natural account than that there are Angels for the former being a Truth of the highest moment and importance to be believed by all hath a proportionable weight and clearness of evidence even to Natural Light more and greater than any other Truth And hence among the Jews the Sect of the Sadduces believed the Existence of God yet denied or doubted the Existence of Angels or separated Intelligences 2. Because the very Supposition of an Angelical Nature doth necessarily suppose the Existence of a Supreme Being from whom they derive their Existences 3. Because the great occasion of Infidelity in relation to Existence of Almighty God is that sensual Men are not willing to believe any thing whereby they have not a sufficient Evidence as they think to their Sense The Notion of a Spiritual and Immaterial Being is a thing that they cannot digest because they cannot see or by any Sense perceive it nor easily form to themselves a Notion of it He therefore that can so far master the stubborness of Sense as to believe such a Spriritual Intelligent Being as an Angel hath conquered that difficulty that most incumbers his belief of a God and we that can but suppose or admit the former cannot long doubt of the latter He therefore that can once bring his thoughts to carry the first Origination of Mankind to the efficiency of an Angel must needs in a little time see a greater evidence not only to believe a Supreme Deity but to attribute the Origination of Mankind and of the goodly Frame of the Universe to the Supreme Being as necessarily best fitted with Power Wisdom and Goodness to accomplish so great a Work and that without the help or intervention of Angels or created Intelligences who must needs derive their Being Power and Activity from him There remains two or three Objections against the force of the Consequence of the Existence of Almighty God and his Efficiencies in the production of Mankind in their first Individuals which I shall propound and answer 1. Object What need there be laid so great a stress upon the Primitive Formation of Man as that it could not be done but by the Power and Wisdom of an Almighty Intelligent Being since every day's experience lets us see that by the mixture and coition of Man and Woman Et ex semine ab utroque deciso in utèro muliebri per spatium decem mensium ad plurimum producitur hujusmodi natura humana quem tot elogiis magnificamus that which we every day see to be an effect of finite Creatures in the daily production of Individuals of Humane Nature Why must we needs call in no less than the Wisdom and Power of God himself to be the immediate Efficient of the first Formation of the Individuals of that nature which we see every day produced by the common efficacy of Nature and efficiency of the Parents Vel ad minus seminis utriusque sexus in utero foemineo conclusi In Answer hereunto I shall not at this time or in this place enter into the dispute how far the Divine Efficiency concurrs immediately in the ordinary Generation of Mankind nor how far the entire Humane Nature as well his Rational Soul as his
Revelation to Moses there was a Divine Manifestation thereof to the first created Man in that fulness of his first illuminated and perfect state of created Nature and from him that Tradition was derived and preserved in that Line of the Patriarchs in which the most important Divine Truths were conserved and traduced from Adam to Moses That which may illustrate my meaning in this preference of the revealed Light of the Holy Scriptures touching this matter above the Essays of a Philosophical Imagination may be this Suppose that Greece being unacquainted with the curiosity of Mechanical Engins though known in some remote Region of the World an excellent Artist had secretly brought and deposited in some Field or Forest some excellent Watch or Clock which had been so formed that the original of its Motion were hidden and involved in some close contrived piece of Mechanism that this Watch was so framed that the Motion thereof might have lasted a Year or some such time as might give a reasonable Period for Philosophical Conjectures concerning it and that in the plain Table there had not been only the description and indication of Hours but the configurations and indications of the various Phases of the Moon the Motion and Place of the Sun in the Ecliptick and divers other curious indications of Celestial Motions and that the Scholars of the several Schools of Epicurus of Aristotle of Plato and the rest of those Philosophical Sects had casually in their walk found this admirable Automaton what kind of work would there have been made by every Sect in giving an account of this Phaenomenon We should have had the Epicurean Sect have told the by-standers according to their pre-conceived Hypothesis that this was nothing else but an accidental concretion of Atoms that haply faln together had made up the Index the Wheels the Ballance and that being haply faln into this posture they were put into Motion Then the Cartesian falls in with him as to the main of their Supposition but tells him that he doth not sufficiently explicate how this Engin is put into Motion and therefore to furnish this Motion there is a certain Materia subtilis that pervades this Engin and the moveable parts consisting of certain globular Atoms apt for Motion they are thereby and by the mobility of the globular Atoms put into Motion A third finding fault with the two former because these Motions are so regular and do express the various Phaenomena of the distribution of Time and of the Heavenly Motions therefore it seems to him that this Engin and Motion also so analogical to the Motions of the Heavens was wrought by some admirable Conjunction of the Heavenly Bodies which formed this Instrument and its Motions in such an admirable correspondency to its own existence A fourth disliking the Suppositions of the three former tells the rest that he hath a more plain and evident Solution of the Phaenomenon namely the Universal Soul of the World or Spirit of Nature that formed so many sorts of Insects with so many Organs Faculties and such congruity of their whole Composition and such curious and various Motions as we may observe in them hath formed and set into Motion this admirable Automaton and regulated and ordered it with all these congruities we see in it Then steps in an Aristotelian and being dissatisfied with all the former Solutions tells them Gentlemen you are all mistaken your Solutions are inexplicable and unsatisfactory you have taken up certain precarious Hypotheses and being pre-possessed with these Creatures of your own Fancies and in love with them right or wrong you form all your Conceptions of things according to those fancied and pre-conceived Imaginations The short of the business is this Machina is eternal and so are all the Motions of it and in as much as a Circular Motion hath no beginning or end this Motion that you see both in the Wheels and Index and the successive indications of the Celestial Motions is eternal and without beginning And this is a ready and expedite way of solving the Phaenomenon without so much ado as you have made about it And while all the Masters were thus controversing the Solution of the Phaenomenon in the hearing of the Artist that made it and when they had all spent their philosophizing upon it the Artist that made this Engin and all this while listened to their admirable Fancies tells them Gentlemen you have discovered very much excellency of Invention touching this piece of Work that is before you but you are all miserably mistaken for it was I that made this Watch and brought it hither and I will shew you how I made it first I wrought the Spring and the Fusee and the Wheels and the Ballance and the Case and Table I fitted them one to another and placed these several Axes that are to direct the Motions of the Index to discover the Hour of the Day of the Figure that discovers the Phasis of the Moon and the other various Motions that you see and then I put it together and wound up the Spring which hath given all these Motions that to see in this curious piece of Work and that you may be sure I tell you true I will tell you the whole order and progress of my making disposing and ordering of this piece of Work the several materials of it the manner of the forming of every individual part of it and how long I was about it This plain and evident discovery renders all these excogitated Hypotheses of these Philosophical Enthusiasts vain and ridiculous without any great help of Rhetorical Flourishes or Logical Confutations And much of the same nature is that disparity of the Hypotheses of the Learned Philosophers in relation to the Origination of the World and Man after a great deal of dust raised and fanciful Explications and unintelligible Hypotheses The plain but Divine Narrative by the hand of Moses full of sence and congruity and clearness and reasonableness in it self doth at the same moment give us a true and clear discovery of this great Mystery and renders all the Essays of the generality of the Heathen Philosophers to be vain inevident and indeed inexplicable Theories the creatures of Phantasie and Imagination and nothing else 1. This therefore is the first Advantage of the Mosaical Hypothesis of the Origination of things above the Philosophical Theories touching the same the latter are inevident conjectural and indeed apparently false the former contains an Evidence of it self by its consonancy to the only manner that can be sufficient for such a Discovery and the plain evident and congruous relation of it 2. All the Philosophical Theories except that which carries the Origination of things up to Almighty God are full of infinite intanglements difficulties and inconsistencies that ever and anon break out and discover themselves whereby they are enforced by a continual substitution of new Suppositions to piece up and mend the breaches that arise upon such
Evidence of the Divine Power that put them and keeps them in Motion than if they all rested And it is a greater Miracle that a Man was constituted upon the Earth that he hath a power given him to propagate his kind that he lives ordinarily such a portion of time in the World that he hath the use of Reason and Understanding I say there is more of Miracle in it than in the want of it Only there are these three things that abate the value of it among Men 1. The commonness of the benefit and wonder renders the Observation thereof little 2. Mankind is negligent in improving his Observation he never rubs the Corn out of the Ear and so by inadvertence supineness and negligence suffers things of this nature to slip away without notice 3. We rarely carry things to their Original but take them as we find them whereas if we did as by a Clew follow the Works of Nature to their Original we should find the Divine Omnipotence and infinite Wisdom at the upper end of the Chain and the Worms themselves no other than Miracles in their first constitution He that considers the admirableness of the Frame of Humane Nature especially of his intellectual power and that is but acquainted with himself will without arrogance or vain-glory conclude that Man is the most admirable Creature that this lower World affords a Creature to which all the visible Creatures of this lower World seem in a great measure to point at as their End And therefore if the first Individuals the common Parents of Mankind were at some one time constituted there was a very great deal of Power Wisdom and Intelligence employed to the making up of such a Piece as this If we see an excellent Picture to the Life or a Statue there will not need much Rhetorick or Logick to perswade or evince that surely it was not done without an excellent knowing and intelligent Artist And certainly that Efficient who ever he was that did at first compose and make up the admirable Structure of the Humane Body all the Organs Nerves Veins Arteries Viscera Bones and other Integrals thereof that endowed it with the Faculties of a vegetable and sensible Nature that gave him a reasonable intellectual self-moving Soul with all its subordinate Faculties that so strangely and stupendiously united two such different Essentials of a reciprocal and intellectual nature was some intelligent Being and such an intelligent Being that was not only of a far more admirable Wisdom and Power than Man now the best of the visible Creatures appears to be but of such an excess of Wisdom and Power as cannot be found in any known Being besides him that we call Almighty God And if any Man shall say as needs he must that surely it must be granted that he was of a Power and Wisdom far more excellent and perfect than that Work he thus made but how are we sure that he must be God May it not be some Being that admirably surpasseth the perfection of Humane Nature and yet may it not be something less than infinite somewhat inferior to God may it not be some Angel some separated Intelligence To this I say 1. That Man that can be forced by this Work to acknowledge an Intelligent Being transcendently beyond the Power and Wisdom of a Man a Power that he never saw but only collected from the eminence of an Effect which surpasseth the activity of any Being that he hath ever seen with his Eyes a Being that acts by choice election and intention I say that Man that can once admit an invisible Being of an efficiency equal to such a Work hath broken the strength of Atheism since whatsoever can be alledged to evince such an Existence as the Objection supposed doth may be alledged efficaciously to prove the Existence of a God since all that can be said for the Existence of the former that and much more may and must be said and granted for the Existence of the latter namely God 2. But again since the measure of any Man's conception touching the infinite sovereign excellence of an Efficient must needs be the excellence of the Work if therefore a Man doth not cannot know any more admirable created Existence than himself he cannot expect a greater Evidence of a more transcendent Power Wisdom or Goodness than he that was the Efficient of such a Being as himself is 'T is possible he may suppose some more excellent Inhabitants of the Heavenly Bodies than he himself is but this is more than he knows and 't is true the Sun and Stars are goodly beautiful Bodies but he doth not know that they are any more than fiery Balls that naturally give light and heat but as he hath no evidence so he hath no evident reason to satisfie that they are animate much less intellectual and consequently for any thing a Man knows he himself is incomparably a more excellent Being than they it is true they last longer and so doth a piece of Marble I speak not to disparage those beautiful Beings but to enforce the Argument ad hominem that to the first formation of a living Intelligent Nature there is as great a Power requisite and conspicuous as to the formation of the noblest Creature that we see or know And I should not question but that that Power and Wisdom which were equal to the first formation of the Reasonable Nature were equal to the formation and efficiency of the Sun or the brightest Star in Heaven Since therefore I can judge of the measure or excess of the Power and Wisdom of any Efficient by the nobleness and value of the Effect and I know not any sensible Being of greater worth value and wonder than Man I have reason to believe that he that first formed Man is a Being of the greatest and most transcendent Power Wisdom and Goodness that is imaginable and that Being which I have reason to believe to be of the greatest Power Wisdom and Goodness I have reason to believe to be Almighty God who is Optimus Maximus And if it be said that the conviction by this Argument is so much the more infirm because I see daily that Man begets a Man and so the efficiency no more proves the Existence of God than it proves the Father to be God that begets a Son of his own likeness and species I say the Instance is so far from weakning the Inference that it rather enforceth it For the first formed Parents of Mankind were also endued with this generative power by virtue of that first efficiency upon the first individual pair of Mankind so that the generative power in Man is but an effect of that redundance of Power that was in the first Efficient of the Humane Nature Indeed if any Man or all the Men in the World could constitute a Man in any other way than by natural propagation it were an Instance that would sufficiently confute the Inference But the generative power and
have their proper gust and relish with him yet he is under the fear of Sickness Pain and Discomposure which fear renders the Disease in a manner present before it comes and so gives a distast and disrelish to even his present fruition And now if it be said That as this sagacity and foresight sometimes gives a disadvantage under Enjoyments by the Passion of Fear so it makes an amends under sensible Inconveniences by the Affection of Hope I answer It is true it doth make some amends but yet it is not answerable For first the anticipations of Fear are ever more vigorous than the anticipations of Hope 2. The objects means and occasions of our fears in relation to sensuals are ever more and greater than the objects of our hopes because we are obnoxious more to dangers and those of divers kinds than we are to deliverances and recoveries from sensible evils 3. But that which is instar omnium is this Death puts a period to all sensual Comforts and this Death is certain will overtake us and we know not how soon and this foresight of Death is a certain foresight and a continual object of certain fear And this fear of Death and the anticipation thereof is always present with us and we cannot deliver our selves from the fear and foresight of it no more than we can deliver our selves from the thing it self and commonly the anticipation and fear of Death is more terrible and dressed up in a more hideous prospect than Death it self And this one provision and anticipation of Death is that which makes all sensual Goods utterly incompetible to be a suitable end of fruition to a Man upon these two accounts viz. First that this presensation and anticipation of Death doth sadly allay all sensible enjoyments makes them weak and renders them ungrateful The Expression is excellent Heb. 3.15 Who through fear of death were all their life time subject to bondage the delicacies of a Man in Bondage lose their tast and relish Again secondly it presents all our enjoyments as determined or determinable in a short time which takes off the value of any sensible enjoyment It must needs be that sensual enjoyment must be abated when he that enjoys it doth in the very enjoyment thereof know it must not last long a Beast enjoys his full Pasture with greater contentment that yet shall be taken from him or he from it to morrow than any Man can enjoy the sweetest Provision for his Sense while he is under the actual sense that he must dye to morrow The advantage of the anticipation of Death is that which renders it impossible that a sensual good can be the ultimate good of fruition to Man since it is by that very advantage rendred a less good to him than to the Beasts that perish The Proof of the Immortality of the Soul of Man belongs to some of the following Discourses I shall not now launch out into that Deep But to me this very Consideration that the very excellence of the humane Faculties especially that whereby he hath a prospect and considerate anticipation of Death renders the good of Sense less good delightful and pleasant to this excellent Creature Man than it is to the very brute Beasts hath been a strong Moral Evidence that there is an immortal Soul in Man for which an immortal Good is reserved Because it seems not suitable with Divine Wisdom and Oeconomy that the Brutes should have a greater felicity than Man yet so it must be if the end of Man's fruition were only a sensible Good or a Good suited only to the Life of Sense 2. And surely if the good of Sense be not the adequate end of humane fruition then much less can those things be the end of fruition intended for Man which are but provisional and subservient only to the good of Sense and such are Honours Grandeur Power and Wealth they are but so many subservients to the acquiring or performing of the good of Sense or the fruition of a sensible Life to him that hath them and therefore lower and less valuable than those things for whose sake and use they serve And thus far I have gone in the Negative whereby I have endeavoured to evince that the good of Sense the fruition of those good things that serve for a sensible Life Meat Drink Clothing the Pleasures and Delights of the Senses the expletion of the Faculties of the Sensible Nature their motions are not the peculiar end of fruition designed by the wise God to the Intellectual Nature of Man I come to consider it Positively That there is an end of Fruition and what we may reasonably conjecture it may be That Man was created for an end of fruition appears 1. From the nature of the Efficient It is as before is observed the property of every intelligent and wise Efficient in all his Works and Actions to intend an End and an end suitable to the value of the work but that is not always an end of fruition to the work it self it is sufficient that there is an end in the work Many times a wise Agent produceth a work or effect in order to something else an instrument subservient to some other thing and thus he might have made Man only to serve glorifie and honour his Maker as a Man makes a Saw or a Watch as an Instrument for his own use without any communication of a Good of fruition to the thing thus made But as Almighty God is a most wise Efficient so he is a most benign and bountiful Efficient He made all things not only for the glory of his Wisdom but for the communication of his Goodness to the things He thus made according to the measure and capacity of their participation He made the inferior Animals for the glory of his Wisdom and Power and for the service of Man and yet he communicated to them so much of fruition and enjoyment and of such a Good as was suitable to their nature namely a sensible Good There is not the meanest Insect in the World but hath a Good of fruition proportionate to its nature namely of a sensible Good in which it delights and which it endeavours to preserve And thus as the Wisdom of this great Efficient made Man the most excellent of Visible Natures for an end and such an end as was suitable to the excellence of the Nature he thus made namely actively to serve and glorifie his Maker so the Goodness and Beneficence of this bountiful Efficient designed an end of fruition to this Creature and designed unto him also such a fruition and of such a good as is proportionate to the excellence of that Nature he thus made And otherwise he should have been proportionally less beneficent to the noblest of sublunary Creatures than he is to the meanest of living Animals which together with the end designed in them in ordine ad aliud have an end of fruition of such a Good as is